


A Painter, a Baker, and a Boy who Never Took Sugar in his Tea

by katiac



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Canon Compliant, Depression, District 13, F/M, Hijacked Peeta, Hijacking, Masturbation, Mental Institutions, Post-Mockingjay, Pre-Epilogue Mockingjay, Sexual Content, everlark, growing back together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 20:25:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 186,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2554475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiac/pseuds/katiac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta’s months in the Capitol under Dr. Aurelius’ care as he struggles to sort real memories from false, come to terms with the horrors inflicted on him and those he loved during the war, and understand the true nature of his connection with Katniss Everdeen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Bread for the Pig

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own 'The Hunger Games.' Some dialogue and quotations used from the trilogy. Mature themes including sexuality, references to torture and abuse.

_“I don’t want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I’m not.”_

 

* * *

 

I no longer flinch at the prick in my arm, its sting small and insignificant as the bite of an ant, only blink at the rush of confusion that inevitably follows.

Seconds pass. Disoriented by the sudden sensation of numbness spreading to the tip of each finger, I swallow and carefully examine my hands. A movement to the left comes seemingly from nowhere and it is with no small measure of uncertainty that I frown, forced to consider the possibility the writhing mass of curtains hanging over my bedside window might be one of the Capitol’s latest muttations. Having learned nothing over the course of recent months if not to keep such suspicions to myself, however, I stay quiet.

"Peeta, are you ready to begin?"

The question warps itself around the weightless haze of morphling, twisting and distorting like ripples from a handful of dropped berries spreading out over the surface of a lake.

I blink again, still staring down at the bandage on my hand. The morphling has stolen the last remnants of pain from the tiny arc of newly-healed incisions where her teeth cut through my flesh. It leaves untouched the memory of her mouth closing over my skin, the heat of her breath, and the fury flashing dark and virulent in her eyes as she struggles to break free from my grip.

_Let me go._

All but oblivious to the scratch of a pen on the far side of the room, I clench my fingers into a tight fist, knuckles whitening, forearm just starting to shake when at last pain silently rips through the tender new skin with a familiar vengeance, searing into the back of my hand in a copy of the image that has haunted my every waking moment since the Quarter Quell, the exact shape of Katniss Everdeen's smile.

Relief comes in a rush. I touch the edge of the bandage and wet my lips, wanting to tear the cotton gauze and tape away, to fit my mouth against the last place hers touched just as she crushed her lips to mine in the dark bowels below the Capitol. Across the room, there's the grunt of a cleared throat. My name, again, repeated a little louder. Annoyed, I finally look up.

The two figures at the end of my bed resolve themselves--a trembling young nurse whose pale coloring suggests she'd rather be assigned to scrub out every bedpan in the hospital than be the one who gets to inch closer and jab me with a hypodermic if it looks like I might fly into a rage during our session, and the far less excitable Dr. Aurelius. Middle-aged and of slightly above average height, he has a rather boring, nondescript look for someone from the Capitol. No obvious tattoos or modifications. Hair graying slightly over his ears and throughout his beard. Only the pretentious accent gives him away.

"This interview aired twelve days before your rescue." He pushes his glasses up his nose and leans forward, gesturing to the television they've wheeled in on a cart where I can see myself sitting frozen on the screen. "What do you remember?"

I grunt, not bothering to answer.

"It wasn't in your file from Thirteen." Unfazed, Dr. Aurelius waits a moment, giving me a chance to frown at the image and acclimate myself to the strangeness of it before continuing. "Anything?"

Wishing he’d just leave me alone, I shrug and cover one hand with the other, a fingertip barely protected from view softly tracing along the outline of Katniss' mouth through the bandage.

"It may still return. I want you to concentrate on what you're seeing on the screen. We'll pause at regular intervals to discuss what comes up for you."

He turns to cue the machine, ignoring my glare. I don't say anything and probably never will, but of all the creepy and humiliating things about my _treatment_ , watching myself on a tape I can't really remember making along with a roomful of people who saw it the first time around and who will take copious notes on my every reaction while I watch myself try and slip my tongue in the mouth of a girl who obviously wants to scoot farther away and who keeps sticking spoonfuls of broth in my face as a distraction definitely ranks in the top three.

_At least from the looks of this one, there probably wouldn't be any kissing._

The tape starts. I stare dully at the screen while the music plays, frowning at the sight of myself running fingers along the arm of the chair.

"So . . . Peeta . . . welcome back."

There's a pause and then I turn to smile on screen. "I bet you thought you'd done your last interview with me, Caesar."

"I confess, I did. The night before the Quarter Quell . . . well, who ever thought we'd see you again?"

"It wasn't part of my plan, that's for sure."

At this, I catch the glint from Dr. Aurelius' pen as he quietly records my responses on the clipboard propped on one leg. Frown deepening, I turn back to the television.

Caesar Flickerman leans forward. "I think it was clear to all of us what your plan was. To sacrifice yourself in the arena so that Katniss Everdeen and your child could survive."

“That was it. Clear and simple.” I watch myself fiddle with the arm of the chair again. “But other people had plans as well.”

The tape pauses and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in the room still breathing. My assigned nurse for the hour has slowly but surely raised the syringe, clearly intent on dropping me to the cold tile floor like a sack of flour if I make a wrong move, and although Dr. Aurelius is more subtle about it, it's hard to miss that one hand has neatly slipped into the pocket of his white lab coat to retrieve the call button that will bring a team of orderlies rushing in to put me in restraints if need be.

"Peeta?"

The prompt is quiet but there's an unmistakable edge to it. Either I answer this time or he ends the session and we start his game over in the morning with the added bonus of a stiff back, a lost day and a leftover headache from a cocktail of knockout meds. I swallow and stare at the screen, trying to make sense of the jumble of images flashing in my brain, some shiny, some fragmented as broken shards of glass, all of them faded and hazy as the blurriest of feverish dreams. After a moment I lick my lips.

"There wasn't a baby . . ."

It's not quite identifiable as question or statement, either out loud or in my head, which Dr. Aurelius immediately picks up on.

"Real," he confirms, patiently nodding as if we haven't had this exact conversation practically every day for the past week. "You made it up during the interview we watched the other day."

I don't bother asking him why partly because he has this annoying habit of flipping those sorts of questions back to me with an overly academic, _'Well, why do_ you _think you did it, Peeta?'_ but mostly because whether it's volunteering to die on her behalf, taking a beating to throw her some bread, or teaming up with a bunch of Careers who plan to stab me in my sleep as soon as my usefulness to them is exhausted all so she has a better chance of escaping, the me I barely remember only ever really did things for one reason anyway.

And it's hard not to hate myself for it.

Dr. Aurelius clears his throat and gestures toward the screen. "What do you think you meant by that?"

"What?" I mumble, distracted. Everything starts feeling all twitchy. A glance over at the curtain-mutts proves a bad idea and I flinch before looking away.

He cues the tape back for me.

_That was it. Clear and simple. But other people had plans as well._

The room falls silent while they wait for me to answer. I just stare at the screen. Part of it's easy to guess--that I'd either figured out or been informed of the rebel plot to use me and Katniss as pawns in their rebellion. But as I watch my face cloud perfectly on cue and observe the methodical brush of my fingers against the arm of the chair, I realize something. That it isn't only that Haymitch betrayed us both, which is hardly surprising, or that I'll never really know whether anything that happened between me and Katniss was real or just for the audience.

I don't trust anything I'm saying either.

The room is practically buzzing by the time I turn away and cover my bandaged hand with the other one. The hum of the television looms ominously as a hive of tracker jackers off in the distance, drips from the bathroom drain cold and empty as water on concrete in an underground room devoid of light. Sharp clacks. The scratch of a pen. Bumps and hisses. Low voices. The squeak of a wheel on a cart. Avox screams I can’t be sure were ever really there. I’ve broken out into a sweat. Hands clenching spastically into fists, they start to shake as I slowly force them to unknot.

Unable to tear my eyes from the place where her teeth have left a burning scar on the back of my hand, I let myself be drawn into the tunnels one more time, reliving the horror of the lizard-mutts for the fleeting memory of feeling the heat of her mouth on mine. Of feeling _her_. Whole. Alive.

“Is she here?” I blurt out, unable to help myself.

Dr. Aurelius doesn’t react to my outburst, just like he hasn’t for the last week and a half, the fact that this morning we managed to get ten minutes into a session before I asked the question something akin to progress. Instead, he merely checks his watch and makes a note on the clipboard.

“Peeta, what did we talk about before?”

Screwing my eyes shut, I scrub both hands over my face, which doesn’t do much to erase the image of Katniss being dragged away, but does make the raw new skin on my forehead start to tingle. Dr. Aurelius clears his throat as a reminder I’m still hovering half a step away from waking up hogtied to the bed, getting told it’s tomorrow.

“Peeta?” he prompts again.

“She’s in a safe, secured place,” I practically snarl, more agitated by the second. He doesn’t respond. There’s a lengthy pause while I debate how to word the next part, hating that I have to ask him for anything, loathing him for holding back the answers that I need. "Is she . . . is someone with her?” I grudgingly mutter. “Her mother, or Haymitch--?"

I don’t say the last part, but it forces itself up from somewhere in a dark corner of my mind anyway, twisting evilly round and round until I can’t breathe for the thought of it.

_Or Gale._

The images try to force their way in, but there’s no need. My head pounds with the endless reverberation of her panicked screams for him just before we were ripped apart. _Gale_ , not Peeta, a memory the Capitol has no need to alter and one that will forever stay frozen with crystal clarity in what remains of my mind.

Dr. Aurelius leans forward.

“You’re starting to feel things again, from your old memories, overwritten with the false ones imprinted during the hijacking. It’s only natural that would be confusing.”

I shake my head, barely listening. It’s pathetic, really, and some part of me can’t stop hating that, even as I can’t stop doing it either. “I have to tell her--”

“Have to tell her what, Peeta?”

My fingers splay and contract with such force I can't focus on much of anything else, violent bouts of trembling coming on when I finally manage to grip the railing at the side of the bed. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the nurse slowly inching closer, syringe in hand.

"Don't," I beg, trapped as a wounded animal, the impulse to hurt, to _kill,_ to keep from being rendered weak and defenseless ever again boiling up, horror and dread just as quickly following in its place from the part of me that wishes I wasn't now capable of this. _"Please."_

Vision almost completely black, I see Dr. Aurelius hold up a hand to stop her.

"Peeta, I want you to keep talking to me as long as you can." His voice echoes as though it's coming from the end of a long corridor. "What you're seeing isn't real. You're safe."

_"Don't let her kill me."_

The voice is so strangled, I barely recognize it as mine.

 

* * *

 

There are needles in my arm.

Doctors wearing masks and carrying clipboards hover in the background, saying nothing, ignoring my screams and pleas for it to stop. They start the recording on the television while I fight against the restraints, depress the plunger on syringe after syringe I have no ability to refuse.

I am strapped to a bed in one room, a cold metal chair in the other. The belts feel no different. One injection burns while the other brings only a sickeningly familiar sense of powerlessness, neatly snipping the last threads of control and loosening my feeble grip on sanity.

Tendrils of memory fade like a dream erased by the too-bright light of morning under the pound of tapes my captors force me to watch over and over and over, each insisting their version of events is the truth, both seeming to recognize there is nothing left inside the mind of the boy who had once been Peeta Mellark to confirm or deny which of them is the liar.

The only thing of which I can be certain is that I trust neither of them.

Thirteen is orderly, rigid in its timetables. Lights come on at a certain time, are dimmed for sleep on schedule whether or not I close my eyes. I am monitored every second of every day. For the first weeks the flashbacks come with such frequency and intensity, I am not trusted out of restraints long enough to feed myself. A strange nurse stands at my bedside and spoons me my meals one bite at a time like an overgrown infant while I sit strapped to the bed, half-drugged into compliance and chewing sullenly. When the doctors finally decide I'm stable enough to make a go at a cup of vanilla pudding on my own, it is under armed guard, heavy sedation, and with a flimsy cardboard spoon they must have spent hours debating whether I could somehow fashion into a makeshift weapon.

Across one entire wall of the hospital room there stretches a dark, mirrored pane of glass. Through it I can see nothing, will never know at any given moment by how many onlookers or for what purpose I am being observed. One can only imagine after the pudding, there was a team up all night writing reports.

Two guards shackle me each day for the short walk to the showers, secure one of the cuffs around the hot water pipes running along the length of the wall after I've undressed, and wait in silence while I fumble to clean myself seated on a stool with only the thin bar of soap provided, my one available hand clumsy with near-constant tremors even before the dose of sedative none of my early trips out of the hospital room are taken without.

It is no more or less humiliating than the set of procedures to which I've already grown accustomed, having orderlies stand watch outside an open stall whenever I need to relieve my bladder or bowels, having any semblance of privacy stripped away so that I might be constantly observed through the glass, and lying strapped to a bed while a team of curious onlookers absorb with voyeuristic rapture my every scream and curse and cry, forcing me to watch over and over again while my heart is skewered in front of all of Panem by someone I naively loved.

And every time I think of Katniss and Haymitch and what they did, I can't help but hate them a little more.

 

* * *

 

There's a sickening moment as you emerge from a flashback where you come back to yourself just enough to realize it's happened again, but you have no idea what you've done. Trashed an entire room. Hurled a nasty string of expletives you'd ordinarily turn beet red just from thinking about. Ranted on insanely for hours about images no one else can see. Screamed until you had to be knocked out.

Killed someone.

You can’t be sure of much. All you know is you hate yourself a little more, if that's even possible.

The light in my room has been dimmed. Dr. Aurelius is standing over me, checking my eyes with the penlight he keeps in his coat pocket. My head throbs from the inside out like someone has taken an eggbeater to my brains, far worse than anything I can remember my mother doling out with her rolling pin. Every sound in the room makes me wince.

I reluctantly accept the cup of water he hands me. "How long was I . . . ?"

"Twenty minutes, this time." He motions the nurse over to the other side of the bed and I warily extend one wrist and allow her to take my pulse. "How do you feel?"

"Awful," I mumble. My arms and legs are heavy as lead and even though I can't really remember it much, I feel about as lethargic as I looked right before Katniss' sleep syrup and mashed berries concoction knocked me out cold for an entire day.

Dr. Aurelius nods. "Unfortunately, I can't give you any more morphling just yet. Can you describe what you saw?"

Making a face, I debate ignoring him, but finally start going through it in a slow, tired voice while he takes notes even though there's really nothing new. The lizard mutts. Katniss laughing as I'm taken from the second arena. Being so terrified when they strap me to the chair and start the tapes of her that I piss myself from fear. I’m too ashamed to mention the image of her running straight into Gale's arms while I lie cold and alone, bleeding on the floor of my cell, but after a few seconds, I squirm a little and reluctantly describe the overpowering urge I felt to strangle her.

_Again._

After jotting down another note or two, Dr. Aurelius reaches into his pocket for the remote device and moves to flick the television off. I frown and push up on the pillows.

"Can’t I see the rest of it?"

He studies me for a moment, clearly considering my mental state. It's hard to say why I want to see it. I almost never feel better afterwards and most of our sessions end like this one, or worse. But then, it’s impossible not to hate the idea of them having another piece of me right there that they control and to which I have no access.

Balling one hand into a fist when he hesitates, I grunt.

"Haven’t you already taken everything out of the room I could use to kill myself if I see something I don't like?"

It's half supposed to be a joke, but nobody laughs. After a moment, Dr. Aurelius gives me a long look and flicks the button.

"That last night . . . to tell you about that last night.” I nod slowly on screen. “Well, first of all, you have to imagine how it felt in the arena. It was like being an insect trapped under a bowl filled with steaming air. And all around you, jungle . . . green and alive and ticking. That giant clock ticking away your life. Every hour promising some new horror.”

I watch myself shrug.

“You have to imagine that in the past two days, sixteen people have died--some of them defending you. At the rate things are going, the last eight will be dead by morning. Save one. The victor. And your plan is that it won't be you."

The recording pauses.

"Peeta?"

I glance over only once it becomes clear he’s going to make us sit there until I do.

Dr. Aurelius pushes his glasses up. "Anything?"

"Nope." Shrugging, I pick at a thread on the edge of the blanket.

He waits and gently prods in an annoying voice I can picture him spending hours practicing in the bathroom mirror. "You can take a minute, if you need--”

Irritated, I rub my eyes and cut him off. "Can we just keep watching?"

It comes out too sharply and some part of me instantly regrets it. But not enough to take it back. No one says anything else and Dr. Aurelius starts the tape again.

"Once you're in the arena, the rest of the world becomes very distant. All the people and things you loved or cared about almost cease to exist. The pink sky and the monsters in the jungle and he tributes who want your blood become your final reality, the only one that ever mattered. As bad as it makes you feel, you're going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. And it's very costly."

The hair on the back of my neck is standing on end even before Caesar leans over to solemnly interject that, _'It costs your life,'_ and for the first time since we started watching, I'm actually starting to believe my own words. And then I see myself frown on screen as if Caesar has missed the easiest question in the book.

"Oh, no. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people? It costs everything you are."

The room goes very still, the words seeming to hang in the air for an eternity. Casual. Unassuming. Light enough to slip in unnoticed like a finely sharpened knife and deliver the deadliest of blows. Even the audience sits stunned.

I squint my eyes shut, mumbling, "Turn it off."

The silence that follows is even worse, the quick, tight scratch of Dr. Aurelius’ pen across the room increasing in agitation as if it's of utmost importance to make sure to record every miserable word. After a moment it stops.

He clears his throat. "What's coming up for you right now?"

I stare down at my hands. "Nothing much."

"You seem upset," he says gently.

At this, I slump back on the bed and stare out the window. There's another long silence, one where my jaw clenches tighter and tighter until I can barely keep from yelling at him to get the fuck out of my room and leave me alone.

“Nope.”

Out of the corner of one eye, I see Dr. Aurelius shift in his chair, fold his arms and cross his ankles as if preparing to settle down for a nap. _Unbelievable_. I grunt under my breath. A minute passes and then two. Finally I rake a hand through my hair.

“Are we just gonna sit here all day?”

He straightens, voice calm. "How does it make you feel, Peeta?"

Studying the mountain ranges off in the distance, I blow out a breath. "Uh . . . I dunno . . . sad, I guess?"

For a second I'm sure he can tell I'm barely trying, but then he just starts writing again and as I stare at my face on the screen it's hard to bring myself to care.

"Can you elaborate on that?"

I let my head flop against the pillows, blinking a few times because the morphling is still making my head swim like crazy and I can barely keep my thoughts straight.

"It's like it happened to someone else."

The tape's paused and I'm staring at the ceiling but I know Dr. Aurelius looks up.

"Tell me."

I pick at the bandage on my hand. "This one I don't really remember. But even in the ones where I do," my finger traces over the outline of her teeth, "I don't remember _feeling_ anything at all. I can see it on the screen just like you, guess what I think you want me to say, but . . ."

There’s a longer silence, one where I’m pretty sure Dr. Aurelius is pinching the bridge of his nose, so I’m not expecting the question when it comes.

“And the memories that have returned spontaneously, are they the same?”

Frowning, I look at him, surprised to see his brow furrowed with what looks to be concentration or concern.

“Uh, yeah, I--”

"Think carefully, Peeta. Take a moment if you need to. Can you think of any memory from before the hijacking that’s resurfaced with emotion attached?”

I'm not moving by this point, barely even breathing. Dr. Aurelius waits a minute.

"Any memory at all."

"The--"

Stopping short, I screw my face up and scrub a hand through my hair.

"Go ahead, Peeta," he encourages.

"One . . . one of the last things I remember before everything starts getting shiny is when Darius and Lavinia were killed . . ."

For maybe the first time since we started our daily sessions, I gain a grudging measure of respect for Dr. Aurelius. Because even when the nurse blanches at my description of Lavinia being stripped naked by the guards, used again and again in front of us, and accidentally killed during the first hour when the electrodes they placed between her legs allowed too much voltage to stop her heart, he doesn't react. Nor does he blink upon hearing about severed fingers and toes being forced down Darius' throat, the beatings that went on so long I began to lose track of the days, or the final grisly moments where they cut out his eyeballs. Just nods every once in a while and writes it all down.

“--it was how I recognized _who_ the mutts had found in the tunnels under the Capitol. Avoxes make a very specific sound when they--”

“I am aware.” Eventually he gets to a stopping point and looks up. "How did you feel when it happened?"

"Scared," I answer automatically.

He nods. "Anything else?"

I think about it. "Glad for Lavinia. That it was over so fast. She could've ended up like Darius."

While he finishes writing I glance over to where my assigned nurse is fidgeting uncomfortably in place and frown. Dr. Aurelius clears his throat.

"Peeta, I want to read something back to you." He flips the page and adjusts his glasses.

_"--and I can still hear Katniss laughing while they strap my arms down. I'm screaming for them to stop, begging and pleading, but they just pick up the first needle and give me the injection anyway. Everything goes completely black except for the television screen where Katniss is sawing down the branch with the tracker jacker nest to try to kill me. I'm so scared when I see the murderous look in her eyes I go stiff as a board, but I can't get away because of the restraints. I'm shaking so hard my stomach hurts. And then the branch falls and there's nothing I can do."_

At first I’m just relieved he stopped right before the part where I wet myself, and for a second I just sit there while he waits. But then it hits me.

"I didn't feel anything there either, did I?"

His voice is gentle. "What about your memories with Katniss?"

Without meaning to, I jerk at the sound of her name. He always says it wrong. Not as markedly as most of the others from the Capitol, but there's still the odd hiss at the end that shouldn't be there any more than a sewer full of lizard mutts created with no purpose but to hunt her down.

This time I don’t even try to hide the path of my finger as I trace the outline of her teeth.

_Katniss._

It comes in a jumbled rush. Fear. Hurt. The smoky earthiness of her hair. Anger as we see each other across a crowded cafeteria table in District Thirteen. Flickers of hope. Confusion. The disdain dripping thick in her voice as she proclaims me to be just another of the Capitol’s mutts. Rage. Betrayal that runs so deep I may never find its originating point. The unfamiliar sensation of having someone else's spit on my tongue. The taste of her mouth mingled with lamb stew and another more subtle flavor I couldn't name, a leaf she liked to pluck wild from bushes in the forest and chew as she walked.

Nothing that provides any hope of clarity.

"They're all the same," I finally say. "Like staring at a series of pictures and being told to describe what they are, and you can, but--"

Dr. Aurelius studies my face for a moment. "But _what_ , Peeta?"

I swallow, noticing maybe for the first time how _small_ her bite feels in comparison to my hand. How small _she_ truly is.

_And not particularly pretty._

Squinting to clear my head, I continue in a halting voice. "But . . . without really knowing what made you want to paint them in the first place." There's a long pause while he writes it down, and just when he starts to speak, I blurt, "She's everywhere in my head."

"In what way--"

"--but none of it makes any _sense_." Heart thumping so hard my chest aches, I rake both hands through my hair. "One minute, I think I want to kill her. I _hate_ her, I'm so angry. And the next, I want to--"

Heat crawls up my neck and I don't finish.

“Want to what, Peeta?”

I just glower at him and he lets it drop. After he gets done writing, he glances at his watch and leans forward.

"Take your time with this, Peeta." He rises from the chair and motions the nurse to push the cart with the television towards the door. "You made excellent progress today and I'm going to give you a bit of homework for our next sessions. I have a theory, but I want to see what comes up for you over the next few days first."

"What sort of homework?"

He crosses his arms with the clipboard tucked to his chest, nodding thoughtfully. "I want you to start keeping track of precisely _what_ you remember _in the moment_ you remember it. What triggers it? What do you smell and taste and see? What feelings does the memory invoke in the present even if they don't seem to match your actions in the past?"

I scoff under my breath. "How am I supposed to write all that down without any--"

"I'll send up an audio recorder." Ignoring my grunt, he makes another note. "How did you sleep last night?"

We go through the same routine every time. He knows I never get more than a few hours in and haven't since they brought me out of a four-week induced coma down in the burn unit. And still he always asks in the hopes I'll eventually give in and reconsider my stance on the long list of medications he wants to prescribe.

"Just great,” I say dryly. "Out like a light as soon as my head hit the pillow."

At this I get a frown, and there's a part of me that can't help but silently gloat even while the other voice in my head chides me for the reaction, a silent panic rising in both the moment he turns for the door.

"Dr. Aurelius?"

He pauses with his keycard raised.

"Where is Katniss?"

For half a second, something like pity flashes in his eyes, and I can't help but hate him for it. But his voice remains unchanged.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Peeta."

Lip curling into a sneer, I flop back on the pillow without bothering to answer.

 

* * *

 

Through the process of my rehabilitation in Thirteen, what starts as _fear_ slowly shifts to confusion. Suspicion. Bewilderment. And finally, anger. But at first there is room for none of these things.

Strapped to an unfamiliar hospital bed, I scream until they knock me unconscious, awaken groggy and unable to remember why my throat is raw. It is quickly discovered I fly into a rage at the mere mention of _her_ name, whenever they try to suggest she is anything less than what I know her to be.

_A muttation sent to kill me. A whore that used me in front of the cameras and then slept with Gale Hawthorne. A monster. A murderer. A liar._

When memories slowly begin to return in the cold, empty isolation of the hospital ward, it is disorienting, terrifying to a degree that surpasses words. They come in flickers at first, fragmented images without words, shredded bits of _something_ I can't hope to find a place for. A half-second snippet of a song whose title I'll never recall. A scrap torn from a list of ingredients that will bake into something unknown.

For the blink of an eye as I sit chained to the wall of the washroom with hot water streaming down my back, I remember the coarse grittiness of sand under my thighs. Hot. Grainy. Dusty. I reach down in confusion to feel my skin, and then it's gone.

Haymitch comes by most days and stays until I scream at him to get out. Five minutes here, ten minutes there. The first couple times he stands unmoving at the foot of the bed and lets me hurl every name I can come up with at him, spitting and fighting against the restraints like a crazed animal while he stares sorrowfully, one hand fumbling for a flask that is no longer there.

That much I remember.

Delly Cartwright tries to help me piece it all back together. And a little later, Prim. And as some part of me begins to concede it's _possible_ Katniss Everdeen is simply a selfish, manipulative girl and not a creation of the Capitol, I come to realize that I wholly dislike the person.

I watch myself on tape, take in the sunny, cheerful boy I can't remember being, watch him sacrifice _everything_ to save her. His future. His leg. His life. I see the insincerity in her eyes when she leans in to him in the cave, the way the tenderness evaporates from her expression the moment she tricks him into swallowing a few mouthfuls of drugged berries, the one point the doctors keep insisting is a lie, that she was a whore who used me to survive the Games and then ran straight to Gale less convincing when I demand its explanation of Haymitch.

I trust the clips they show me no more than I trust the Capitol's, believe the answers they give me about Katniss barely as half-truths, will have no peace until I know for sure.

And so on the morning I begin work on Finnick and Annie's wedding cake, I ask to see her.

 

* * *

 

I lie restlessly until just after two in the morning according to the wall panel behind my bed. It also controls the lights in the room, and will respond to voice commands even when I am without the use of my hands, a feature upon which learning about I laughed right in Dr. Aurelius' face.

As has become habit over the course of eleven miserable nights, I pace from one end of the room to the other. In a space devoid of stimuli--my restrictions having removed any object that could possibly be turned into a tool of self-injury--the coolness of the tile floor under my one remaining foot is one of the last available forms of reassurance.

 _Real_. Not real. _Real_. Not real.

I stop at the window, stare out at the city lights and wonder if somewhere across the Capitol, Katniss can't sleep for the nightmares either, and is doing the same.

_You're still trying to protect me. Real or not real?_

Fingers tickle the skin of my forehead like the forgotten whisper of a wetted brush across canvas, cautiously stroking through my hair as if she fears questioning why she wants to do it herself. Every muscle contracts at the intrusion of her touch, the temptation to pull away, stifling, something far deeper buried forcing me to suppress the urge to moan at the curl of each petal-soft fingertip through the ends of my hair.

I lie unmoving like a dog at her feet, failing to protest the contact enough times that we both understand it is allowed, by some twisted psychological reasoning neither of us has the means to sort out, even _wanted_.

And so she continues to stroke me, petting my forehead like the most pathetic of wounded animals. When a rough shake from Pollux jars me from the first real sleep I've claimed in days, the realization it's come at her hand is all but incomprehensible.

_Because that's what you and I do. Protect each other._

Swallowing, I spread my fingers and peer cautiously at the back of my hand, feeling the slice of silver daggers as she glares up at me, eyes cold and unforgiving, the last moment we are perhaps ever to have twisted by rage.

 _Let me go_.

"I can't," I whisper hoarsely. The curtains fall closed and darkness washes over the room.

It is after I climb into bed and lie staring at the ceiling that her face begins to blur, the image prying itself from the desperate clutches of memory neatly as she extracted her fingers from my hand after the first Games, and with it, any presence in my day to day life. As much a figment of my imagination as any source of reassurance in my consciousness, she inhabits my dreams, and is a fixture in every nightmare, _Katniss Everdeen_ , who fills all the spaces in my head, even those I can't access myself.

I roll to one side and cup a hand over my mouth, allowing warmth to pool with each breath, drawing back the dark, swirling heat from the seconds when her lips had fused with mine for the last time, the kiss I can barely remember, the one I _want_ to remember.

 _Stay with me_.

"Always," I promise to the imprint of her teeth.

My lips brush across the back of the bandage before I can stop them, hot tears of self-loathing leaking from the corners of my eyes as my chest begins to shake.

There is no misconstruing the look of disbelief she gives me in return. Expression hard, it is laced not so much with pity as open disgust, and I curl tighter into a ball and tuck my injured hand beneath the thin hospital blanket, harboring not the faintest sliver of doubt that wherever she may be tonight, Katniss Everdeen is not crying for me.

 

* * *

 

I know something is wrong when all the lights come back on at a quarter past eleven. Haymitch slows just inside the door and holds up both hands, each of us silently appraising the other as he's followed into the room by two guards and a nurse wearing gloves and carrying an IV kit. I frown.

"What's going on?"

There's a long pause, one where Haymitch's accomplices work their way into position flanking my bed while he and I stare only at each other. Finally he nods.

"Says she'll see you."

There's no need to ask who _she_ is, his reluctance to speak her name until he's heard me demonstrate I can safely do so myself in that moment without the sound of it causing me to fly into a rage a mistake he won't make twice.

But tonight I simply hold out my arm to the nurse without protest, allowing her to hook up an IV and sedative that can be triggered and dispensed by remote if necessary. I avoid looking at any of them while she puts on the wrist cuffs and fastens two extra restraints to each arm, a measure that has been unnecessary for well over three weeks and one that can't help but feel like a punishment now. That _I_ am the one with everything to fear and will be forced to confront Katniss stripped of any possible form of defense and strapped helplessly to the bed much as I was in every last torture session arranged courtesy of the Capitol no more grossly unfair than anything else I've been forced to endure, I swallow my anger and simply wait.

And at just past midnight, the door slowly opens.

For close to half an hour, I have done nothing but try to visualize her coming into the room over and over again, intent on controlling my reactions when the moment arrives. But as her eyes lock on mine, the jolt to my chest is instantaneous.

She is thin and clearly unwell, olive skin blanched to a sickly grayish pallor that seems to match Thirteen's standard issue clothing, the wisps of hair that escape her loose braid limp and stringy. When she gets a few feet from the bed, she stops. Visibly unsure of herself, she wraps both arms around her middle and bites her bottom lip, coming no closer.

"Hey."

It's something in the way she worries her teeth along the edge of her mouth, I decide later, that proves distracting. She shifts from one foot to the other while I look her over, clearly waiting for an answer.

I frown. "Hey."

She flinches at my tone and I have to bite back the urge to smile. Finally she squirms a little and shrugs.

"Haymitch said you wanted to talk to me."

"Look at you, for starters," I reply before she can catch her breath, and am rewarded by another nervous little jump.

Her eyes stay locked with mine for a few seconds before she begins to wilt under the weight of my stare, but it isn't until she begins casting furtive glances towards the one-way glass that I catch sight of the earpiece nearly concealed by her hair. Fury rises as I understand in an instant, hating Haymitch as much as her for once again choosing their preferred sides.

Keeping my voice flat, I look her over in an appraising way. "You're not very big, are you? Or particularly pretty?"

Anger flashes in her eyes and the edge of her lip curls. "Well, you've looked better."

I laugh then, because _this_ Katniss Everdeen, I recognize. This one rings true. And despite everything about her that is so instantly off-putting, there is an honesty in the acerbic bite of her bluntness that brings with it an almost crushing sense of relief. There are none of the cheerfully sanitized tales of our shared childhood Delly recounts at the doctor's instructions, no half-fibs cleansed of any important detail from Haymitch, the sting of the truth refreshing as a first breath after being smothered for weeks.

She scowls at me and I stop laughing long enough to answer.

"And not even remotely nice. To say that to me after all I've been through."

At this she turns to study the toes of her boots with a sudden intensity that betrays the casualness of her words and I know I've struck a nerve.

"Yeah. We've all been through a lot. And you're the one who was known for being nice. Not me." She fidgets in place for a minute and starts edging towards the door. "Look, I don't feel so well. Maybe I'll drop by tomorrow--"

I let her get within a foot of it and lay my final card on the table.

"Katniss . . . I remember about the bread."

Her shoulders give a subtle jerk, fingers trembling a little as she slowly turns back to face me.

"They showed you the tape of me talking about it," she says warily, brow furrowed.

Our eyes meet. I frown.

"No. Is there a tape of you talking about it? Why didn't the Capitol use it against me?"

She swallows and creeps back over towards my bed. "I made it the day you were rescued." Her arms cross protectively in front of her and I watch her try to hide a wince. "So what do you remember?"

"You. In the rain." My eyes never leave hers. "Digging in our trash bins. Burning the bread. My mother hitting me. Taking the bread out for the pig but then giving it to you instead."

She's nodding before I can even finish. "That's it. That's what happened." She comes closer again, arms unfolding, fingers briefly dangling over the foot of my bed like she'd considered fiddling with the far corner of the sheet out of nervousness and barely caught herself in time. Her voice softens, eyes so wide they've turned a pale, glassy gray. "The next day, after school, I wanted to thank you. But I didn't know how."

I stare at her in disbelief, realization slowly dawning that she wanted that boy _back_. The one she used in the tapes, who gave her the world and asked nothing in return, that where I had come seeking to understand why I would have sacrificed everything for a girl who seemed so small, so insignificant, so heartless, and so cruel to use me over and over again only to leave me just when I needed her most, once again she had come only to take what she needed.

 _And it was hard not to hate her for it_.

Instead, I simply continue retelling the story that clearly meant something special to her, and was nothing but a series of meaningless images to me. "We were outside at the end of the day. I tried to catch your eye. You looked away. And then . . . for some reason, I think you picked a dandelion."

She waits a moment and then nods, eyes never leaving mine. I take a breath.

"I must have loved you a lot."

My voice is soft and she almost chokes on her answer, but coughs instead, quickly clearing her throat.

"You did."

I press on before she can regain her bearings. "And did you love me?"

Her eyes shoot down to the tile floor so fast the answer is painfully obvious, but she still squirms in her boots for a minute and tries to lie her way out of it.

"Everyone says I did," she hedges, voice small. "Everyone says that's why Snow had you tortured. To break me."

"That's not an answer." I wait a beat while color floods her cheeks. "I don't know what to think when they show me some of the tapes. In that first arena, it looked like you tried to kill me with those tracker jackers."

A solid month of conditioning, and I still can't keep from flinching slightly at the word. Her scowl returns.

"I was trying to kill all of you," she snaps, contempt dripping from every word. "You had me treed."

I nod slightly and move on. "Later, there's a lot of kissing. Didn't seem very genuine on your part." Waiting a minute for this to sink in, I watch a red flush spread down her neck. "Did you like kissing me?"

"Sometimes." The answer is strangled and soft, so much so that I can't help but wonder if it's the truth. She fusses with the end of her braid. "You know people are watching us now?"

"I know." For half a second, I allow myself a note of dark satisfaction, glad this humiliates her as much as she has me. "What about Gale?"

She lifts her chin, eyes flashing angrily.

"He's not a bad kisser either."

The words come as a punch in the gut, but I don't react, staring into the cold gray of her eyes as I ask, "And it was okay with both of us? You kissing the other?"

"No," she retorts. "It wasn't okay with either of you. But I wasn't asking your permission."

At this, I can't help but laugh and again, she scowls, face burning as she hazards another glance towards the one-way mirror where Haymitch is no doubt whispering in her earpiece that he'll get her out of this jam, our mentor, manipulating the pieces and choosing sides, just like always. I finally stop laughing and shake my head.

"Well, you're a piece of work, aren't you?"

The fraction of a second she stares is long enough to see her eyes grow glassy with the first hint of tears. To know that I've won. I watch her rush from the room, make no move to call after her like the old Peeta would've undoubtedly done.

And when Haymitch comes to my room the following day, I make no mention of the visit, nor do I ask to see her again.

 

* * *

 

It happens two nights later.

She hangs back close to the fence at the opposite side of the schoolyard, one thin arm circled protectively around her younger sister's shoulders. Their chins are lifted towards a warm spring sky filled with white fluffy clouds, but it is the look in her eyes as she clings to Prim that causes the breath to hitch in my throat. Where only one day earlier there was desperation and hopelessness now glows a quiet ember of determination, and as I watch her smooth Prim's threadbare collar, the dull throbbing in my cheek seems well worth any price I might've paid to throw her the bread.

I glance away just before she looks up, avoiding the clear, shining gray eyes that can surely see straight through me. But once she turns, I carefully peek back, watch the swing of her hand in Prim's grip and catch the second of hesitation where she seems to spy something nestled in the grass.

And as she kneels to pluck the dandelion from its stem, braid slipping over one shoulder to rest crookedly beneath her ear, there is a strange sense of warmth that blossoms in my chest, the tickle of it passing quickly as I imagine the silky tail of her hair might slip through my fingers had I possessed the courage to reach out and touch it. But it is there. Warm and precious and _alive_.

As quickly as it comes, the sensation begins to fade away, and in the fleeting seconds as I start to slip towards consciousness, I feel a rush of panic.

 _No_.

I grasp for it, flailing clumsily, desperate for something, for _anything_ to cling to, wanting to stay if only for a little while longer. Its echo lingers even after I open my eyes to find the dull gray light of early morning in the Capitol and shiver, curling tighter under the covers. I root a hand instinctively down the front of my loose cotton pants, feeling to see if my body has come back to life in response.

Finding nothing, I squeeze my eyes shut and stifle a low moan, longing for the feeling again, to bask in it, soft and comfortable, what the boy on the screen had been so sure of, so sure he would have gladly given up everything for _her_. Not like this. Cold. Miserable. Alone. Head a mishmash of horrors, images each more terrible than the last, to sort true from false painful enough even before accepting the nightmares I would always keep as _real_.

 _Real_.

I sit up so fast the cup of water goes tumbling off the tray next to the bed. Ignoring it, I fumble for my prosthetic with one hand and reach for the call button with the other. Three buzzes go blithely unanswered before I hurl it away and angrily yank my leg on.

"Mr. Mellark, is everything--"

 _"Paper."_ Blurting it, I rake both hands through my hair. “I need paper.” There’s a long pause while I pace to the far side of the room, fighting to get my breathing under control. "Is . . . is Dr. Aurelius here?"

The head nurse comes on over the intercom. "Peeta, he'll be here in a few hours. Why don't you lie down, try and get some--"

"No, you don't understand." Voice rising, I ball one hand into a fist. "Something _happened_. I . . . I remembered something. I need to write it down before I forget." I swallow, hesitating. "Ca . . . can't you call and ask him, or--?"

"Not at five in the morning," Hadriana answers calmly, and I frown up at the panel on the wall. "Why don’t you use your voice recorder?"

The intercom falls silent. I close my eyes, desperation starting to rise, the warm feeling in my chest fading further away with every passing second. Taking a breath, I lick my lips.

" _You_ couldn't let me have it . . . just this once . . .?"

She doesn't answer, but somehow I know she's shaking her head at the monitor while the other nurses look on, all of them muttering in agreement that I've gone insane. And that's when reality sets in with an angry red haze.

That even if I somehow did manage to talk them into giving me paper, I would never be trusted with something as sharp as a pencil, my food cut in advance before it was delivered to my room so I had no excuse to ask for a knife, what plastic cutlery I was allowed checked and confiscated at the end of every meal, the shower in my private bathroom preprogrammed to include all the standard options in water pressure but only a limited range of temperatures in order to prevent purposeful scalding, the available soaps, shampoos and oils all sufficiently mild and non-toxic.

I close my eyes, struggling to remember the hope and determination blossoming in Katniss' face right before she bent to pick the dandelion, to draw back the exquisite, private _warmth_ that curled around my insides like the hot, yeasty aroma of freshly baked bread knowing she was safe. That _I_ had kept her safe.

"Please." I whisper it just once.

For a long moment there is nothing, and I am foolish enough to allow a flicker of hope. And then the intercom clicks back on.

"Peeta, you know the rules,” she says, gentler this time. "Use your voice recorder and Dr. Aurelius will be here--"

The voice recorder is the first thing I smash.

Time dissolves into a manic blur. The bed goes next, the mattress sagging unevenly where it lands against the far wall, rage only boiling higher as my pillow falls harmlessly to the floor. The curtains come down with little effort, the rod designed of flimsy plastic too light to support body weight, intended to break away if too much force is applied. Determined to destroy _something_ in the space they've so artfully designed to keep me prisoner, I'm trying to smash through the thick window glass when the door slides open.

There's three of them and one of me, the odds having never been much in my favor, and it doesn't take them long to get me pinned down. I'm screaming obscenities at the one with his knee jammed into my back when I feel the needle go in, and then my limbs turn to jelly within seconds, vision darkening before I even have time to register fear.

* * *

Pain stirs me from sleep in increasingly insistent waves, ricocheting dully against the sides of my skull. Groaning, I swallow and try to lift a hand to rub my forehead only to discover they've put me back into restraints, tethering me to the bed at my wrists, ankle and left knee.

There's a moment of sick panic that threatens to turn my stomach inside out and I yank on the cuffs hard, knowing it's no use.

_"Fuck."_

I yell it to the empty room, which has been put back together while I was out. By the light coming in through the window, I can tell it's early afternoon.

The trembling starts somewhere low in my gut and quickly spreads through my chest. I fight the restraints for another minute before giving up. Clenching both hands into fists, I blink to clear the tears and fumble for the call button that someone has moved back within reach of my right hand.

"Peeta?" The voice that comes over the intercom is familiar to me, Decima, one of the more experienced nurses who works on our floor.

There's none of them I can honestly say I _like_ , but of all the doctors, orderlies and nurses who come in and out of my room, administering medications, taking vital signs and bringing my meals, she's one of the ones I regard with the least amount of wariness.

The shaking makes it hard to form coherent speech. "Could, um," I choke out a cough when my voice cracks, "could I have some water, please?"

There's no answer. I let my head flop back on the pillow, fresh, hot tears of frustration streaking from the corners of my eyes as I try to stop my heart from racing.

A minute later, the door slides open with a hiss.

Decima angles the straw to my lips without a word, silently removing it once I'm through drinking. She pulls a tissue from her pocket, and when I make no move to protest, blots my face.

"I'll take out your IV now." She pauses, glancing at my hands, which are still shaking in the restraints, arm muscles knotted and tense. "Do you want me to give you something to help you relax?"

 _"No,"_ I whisper through gritted teeth and gesture to my wrists. "Can you take these off?"

She stares at me and I can see the answer in her dark brown eyes. Fighting off a fresh wave of anger and helplessness, I bite my lip, saying nothing as tears once again begin to flow.

"Dr. Lucius signed off on the restraint this morning after watching the video feed." She says it softly and with no emotion attached. "Fifteen minutes of calm behavior to remove them. We would need another doctor to come in and reevaluate you to override his orders." Finished removing the IV, she bandages my arm and maneuvers the wheeled stand around the bed. "You're sure you don't want anything?"

I shake my head, chest starting to heave. She's almost to the door when I squint my eyes shut and blurt the question out in a pathetic mumble.

"Did . . . did someone call--"

"He's in with another patient right now." Decima comes over to the bed and dries my cheeks again. "I sent up a message you were awake. They’ll pass it on as soon as he's out of his session." She looks down at me. "Do you need to use the bathroom?"

I do, but not enough to piss in a urinal while tied down, and after I shake my head again, she finally goes. The tremors in my hands intensify not long after the door closes. Spasms that jerk through my leg muscles. Bouts of violent trembling that start in my chest and refuse to be quelled, radiating up until my teeth clack together.

The straps. The bed. The sharp, sterile bite of disinfectants stinging my nose with every breath. Tape from a freshly removed needle pulling at the hair on my arm. Rooms devoid of human contact, doctors and Capitol technicians alike preferring the anonymity of one-way glass once I begin to scream. Heart pounding so hard it hurts, I screw my eyes shut.

There's a sharp rap at the door, slightly quicker and more annoyed than usual, but I immediately know who it is. He's the only one who ever bothers to knock before entering, which is all kinds of pointless since everyone has a keycard for the door except me and I'm not even allowed to walk around on my own, but he seems like just the type who would get off on dumb things like that.

I hear him drag the chair around the side of my bed. A page rustles, a pen first clicking and then beginning to scratch. I swallow, but don't open my eyes.

"Take them off."

Dr. Aurelius waits a moment and clears his throat. "I need you to calm down first, and then I'll remove them."

I bark out a laugh, but with the tremors it just sounds pathetic.

"Fuck you."

He ignores me. When I open my eyes he's frowning.

"What happened this morning, Peeta?"

Grunting, I just shake my head. He waits while I try and fail to stop tears from welling in my eyes. Hating him even more, I turn away.

"Let me go," I counter, voice rising, realizing only after the words leave my mouth exactly how much Katniss must loathe me for what I've done. That wherever she is in her _safe and secure place_ that must feel even more like a prison than mine, she has once again been stripped of any autonomy, and this time, _I_ was the one to do it by preventing her from swallowing the Nightlock capsule and ending her life.

Dr. Aurelius leans forward and speaks softly. "I will remove the restraints, Peeta, just as soon as you can demonstrate you can control your--"

"Go fuck yourself."

Practically spitting it, I look away, shaking too hard to add much of anything else. We sit there while a minute turns into two, and then three, and snot starts to run down my face.

Finally Dr. Aurelius rises from the chair and pulls it to the opposite corner of the room. I swallow, watching guardedly as he returns to release the strap on one of my wrist restraints.

The tremors momentarily intensify as I pull my hand from the cuff and fumble to free the other, and I'm having such trouble with the buckle that when he drops a box of tissues at the foot of my bed, I jerk back like he’s stabbed me.

He returns to his chair without saying anything. For a minute, I just ignore him and the tissues, but by the time I finish getting my ankle free, I feel disgusting enough to grab a handful before backing up to the head of the bed.

Face dry, I slump against the wall, the constriction in my chest starting to ease. Dr. Aurelius peers over the rim of his glasses when I bend down to get my prosthetic.

I frown, eyeing him warily. "Can I use the bathroom?"

"Of course."

I don't bother looking at him when I come out. Returning to the same spot at the end of the bed, I prop my arms on my knees, head down. After a moment, Dr. Aurelius clears his throat.

"Do you want to tell me why you were upset?"

I shrug and we sit there for another minute in angry silence. And suddenly I have the strange, fuzzy memory of Haymitch teaching me to play chess by the fire after supper and his explanation of the meaning of the term _stalemate_ , because even if refusing to answer withholds the one thing I have that Dr. Aurelius wants, there's no one else likely to actually listen. And so after a minute I blow out my breath and scrub both hands through my hair.

"I wasn't _upset_ ," I explain slowly, biting back annoyance. "I just asked them for some paper and they--"

"You _asked_ them?" He says it gently, but there's an emphasis on the word meant to draw my attention.

Frowning, I open my mouth, starting to protest that I _had_ asked or at least that I'd tried to. But he just calmly folds his hands and waits long enough that the rest of it starts to trickle back, including some of the particularly vile things I screamed at Hadriana right before she jabbed me with the needle, and shame begins to claw with hot fingers at my neck and cheeks.

He doesn't say anything when I start fiddling with the edge of the blanket. Another full minute passes before I lift my head.

"I remembered something," I say quietly. "A dream. I . . . just for a second, I felt--"

Dr. Aurelius begins to write, interjecting only when it's clear I'm not going to continue on my own.

"Felt what, Peeta?"

"I'm . . . not sure," I admit. "It was right after I threw Katniss the bread--the next day at school. She looked over at me, just for a minute. And then I saw her bend down to pick a dandelion, just like before, but this time . . . it was different."

He's silent for a moment.

"Different how?"

My mouth opens and closes several times before I finally lower my head in frustration, the words failing to form.

"I don't know." Balling one hand into a fist, I shake my head. "I _knew_ this would happen--I _tried_ to tell them it would be too late, that I would forget it like I forget everything else."

Dr. Aurelius glances up. "Peeta, did you even consider using the voice reco--"

"I didn't want to write it down," I snap, cutting him off in a sharp tone I can somehow picture the old me cringing at. "I wanted to _draw_ it."

He just looks at me for a moment, and then turns to stare thoughtfully out the window as if he's actually considering my request.

Suddenly kicking myself for not having worked up to asking a little more nicely, I wait as long as I can stand it and then start to pick at the tape on the bandage affixed to my hand.

"I'm not trying to kill myself."

"No," he agrees, faster than I'm expecting it. Caught off guard, I barely have time to look up before he continues. "But according to the accounts of your squad members, you asked _them_ to do so at multiple points during the assault on the Capitol."

I just stare back at him, breathing low and shallow. It is an unspoken betrayal that has no name and no face, each of them as likely to have committed it as the last. Pollux. Gale. Cressida.

Katniss.

_Who can I trust? Well, us for starters. We're your squad._

Dr. Aurelius continues when I offer nothing. "You were . . . _uncooperative,_ at best, on the occasions I visited you down in the burn unit, were brought in after the assassination in hysterics and had to be sedated--"

"That's not fair," I interrupt, glaring when he falls silent and affixes me with a calm, patient look he knows annoys me to no end, like I'm crazy and he's not and it's so obvious that he's content just to sit there and wait until I figure it out for myself. "I _stopped_ Katniss from killing herself. Don't I get any credit for that? They drag her away after killing the wrong president and you won't tell me anything. How the fuck do you expect me to react?"

The question hangs in the air for what seems an eternity after I look away, unable to maintain eye contact. Because both of us know the answer dances around a subject I've so far refused to talk about--what happened to Mitchell after I went into a flashback and knocked him into a pod--and I'm not about to go into it now.

After a moment, he leans forward and clears his throat. "And what about your hand, Peeta?"

Not responding, I keep my eyes focused on a shadowy speck on an otherwise spotless white wall, throat tightening when he continues in a quiet voice.

"The wound on your hand that you have proceeded to purposefully reopen every day since it was stitched shut." He waits, allowing the words to sink in. "On exactly what behavior of yours are you suggesting I base the decision to allow you independent access to sharp objects?"

I shift around a little. "Charcoal pencils aren't that sharp--"

"They're sharp enough."

Muttering something rude under my breath, I slump back against the pillow.

"One pencil," I finally say, glancing in his direction, but not quite looking at him. "For an hour at a time at first, supervised with one of the nurses there, if you don't believe me. And I'll--"

My throat closes and I choke out a cough. Because right then I know what I could give up that might be enough to convince him. But it's a gamble. To trade the last thing I can be sure was real for memories that might never return. Swallowing, I stare down at the back of my hand, trying to recall that flicker of feeling, soft as the tail of a sun-warmed braid.

"--let it heal," I manage to finish in an odd sort of strangled voice, lifting my hand a few inches to indicate what I mean.

Dr. Aurelius studies me in silence while I pick at the edge of the bandage. Rising from the chair, he slides his clipboard under one arm and gestures to my hand.

"I'll send Decima in to redress that and will discuss the rest with your team."

Eyeing him a bit less warily, I don't answer, but allow a small nod.

The following morning, a boxed set of charcoals and a thick pad of paper are delivered to my room, along with a list of conditions.

My pencils will be counted twice a day when the nurses come in to clean and check my hand. They will hold the sharpener. Any attempt to hurt myself or someone else and my supplies will be taken away. I will be subject to a full physical inspection during my weekly medical exams, which is nothing new, and my team decides to let me use the pencils as many hours a day as I want after all.

And for the first time since arriving at the hospital, I think I might be starting to trust Dr. Aurelius.

 

* * *

 

Comments are like fresh-baked cheese buns, delivered to your door by Peeta. Would love to hear what you thought :)

 


	2. Things that Should Count for Something

_”My nightmares are usually about losing you. I’m okay once I realize you’re here.”_

 

* * *

 

No matter how they might end, my memories of the train always begin in precisely the same way.

With the sound of Katniss Everdeen's screams.

Images flicker back in the early morning hours as I lie alone and awake in my room in Thirteen. Strapped to the bed, I fight to get away from visions no one else can see, cursing and writhing until a nurse enters to administer the usual dose of sedative. Maddeningly, the same ones come over and over. Fragments that make no sense. Pieces of a puzzle I can’t assemble without the picture on the front of the box. A hallway I don’t recognize. A lavish meal. The forgotten taste of warm, spiced milk. An Avox attendant waiting at the door. The memory of lying awake in a dim compartment while Katniss sleeps in my arms.

With some reluctance, Haymitch confirms it.

Eventually I come to remember pacing a series of long corridors, roaming them night after night until exhaustion leaves me no choice but to sleep. As the train rolls across district after district under the cover of darkness, it becomes little more than a vast mechanical prison. Katniss and I cling to each other just as we did in the cave, rendered two more of the Capitol's caged animals, unable to escape the lingering psychological torment they've left us with any more than we could their arenas.

From behind a locked door I cannot force open, her screams grow more desperate. I claw at the wood until my fingers bleed, pounding and shoving with weakening fists as the electric lights one by one begin to short out. A familiar wave of panic seizes my chest as the darkness slowly spreads through the compartment, her voice drifting further and further away.

_Katniss._

Her name, even in the faintest whisper, closes my throat easily as the pressure of my hands once choked off air to hers. Yanked to my feet in the dark, I am dragged, struggling and blindfolded, down another hallway, one I have never seen, but know by its sounds of something mechanical humming in the background and by the sharp, medicinal sting of disinfectant that permeates every breath, dread coursing through my veins long before they strap me to the chair and insert the first needle, start the flow of venom that will bring on the hallucinations.

They wait until I start to scream to remove the hood. Katniss looms over me on the screen, hair tangled and wild, fangs bared. An electrical shock is delivered if I try to look away. I twist in the chair until my arms are chafed raw from the restraints, scream until my voice goes hoarse and then fails entirely, mute and powerless to cry out as the nameless, faceless Avox who comes in the dark to empty the bucket of waste from the corner of my cell. Her teeth close on my throat. Sick with panic, I finally break free, one arm banging against something cold and metallic.

_"Fuck."_

Panting, I sit up and scrub a hand over my face, oblivious to the newly-regrown grafts of skin stretched in a patchwork across my forehead until a searing fire breaks out behind the path of my fingers. I curse again under my breath.

_Not real._

In the dark, the words feel slippery and impossible to cling to as a freshly-greased pan. I grope for the wall panel, fumble for the cup of water on the nightstand and try to slow my breathing.

"Not real," I repeat, hands trembling violently. "Not real, not re--"

"Peeta?"

The water cup goes spinning across the floor. Vision blackening at the edges, I cower back against the pillows, needing several seconds to place the voice as familiar. Only after a period of intense concentration do I eventually identify the speaker as _Decima_. Remember that I’m in the Capitol. In the hospital.

Swallowing, I clear my throat. "Yeah?"

 _Her_ image rushes back the second I squint my eyes shut. Taunting my inferiority alongside the tracks leading back to Twelve, a handful of flowers she wants even less than me dangling limply from her hand as if she wishes she had a better excuse to discard us both. Laughing at my screams as the venom goes in. Depressing the plunger on the needle herself.

I moan and grip the bedrails so hard my knuckles turn white. The images fail to dissipate, only shift, Katniss’ arms twined around the neck of a tall, dark-haired figure whose face I don’t need to see to know I loathe, their bows tossed aside and hunting clothes askew, hips bucking greedily as they rut against a tree.

"--you need anything?" Decima’s voice comes back over the intercom.

Flinching, I blink, unsure how much time has passed.

“I’m okay."

It’s a lie and both of us know it, but the intercom falls silent anyway. Slumping back on the pillow, I stare up at the ceiling for an undetermined amount of time and then reach into the drawer for my charcoals and sketchpad, the Katniss Everdeen who lives in the latter’s pages taking up silent battle with the one it sometimes seems I have no power to subdue for control of my mind.

Compared to the vast array of supplies at my disposal back in Twelve, it isn’t much. A couple of pencils. A pad of paper. And yet, being able to capture the exact angle of her mouth as she sleeps, the hope in her eyes as she watches me from across the schoolyard, and the dark scowl that's quick to form as she glares across the table at Haymitch in a way that can't be taken from me brings a relief that is all but _indescribable_.

The sharp, smoky tang of charcoal wafts up from the paper the second I lift the cover. Taking a breath, I lick my lips and prepare for the inevitable jolt from eyes that still haunt my every dream and nightmare.

And then with a flip of the page, she’s there.

One hand is clasped securely around Prim’s, their arms painfully thin, elbows and shoulders protruding in sharp points through threadbare sweaters. There is a furrow of determination etched in her brow as she stares transfixed at the dandelion clutched tight in one fist, so much so that I can almost watch her jaw tense in the seconds before she grips Prim’s fingers tighter and drags her from the schoolyard, strong, stubborn, and infinitely brave.

_“Katniss.”_

Eyes closed, I whisper it reverently, tasting each soft syllable of her name like it was the most delectable of frosted tiger lily cookies. It is in the deafening silence that follows that my heart begins to sink through my chest.

Swallowing, I flip ahead to the sketch I've failed for the better part of a week to get right. The perspective is an odd one. Head pillowed against my arm, she's contorted at an angle across the expanse of the paper, eyes closed and face guarded even in sleep, careful to give away no hint of what she's really thinking. Studying the curve of her lips, I wait for something, _anything_ , to come.

_You didn't have any nightmares last night._

Just like every other time, the words are curled around the flickering, remembered sensation of trailing a hand slowly through her hair, the dark strands slipping silky and fine through my fingertips, each touch performed delicately as if it might be the last.

_I had a dream, though. I was following a mockingjay through the woods._

Her voice is thin in my memory. Unsure. Pale and indistinctly scrawled as though it might be washed away easily as chalk drawings on the paving stones after the first few fat splatters of rain begin to fall.

"You slept like you were happy," I whisper to the sketch, struggling to remember what it was that came next.

Frustration slowly creeps in, any semblance of clarity, for the eighth night in a row, failing to form. The silence growing painfully still, I select a stick of charcoal, darkness once again hovering in the room’s every corner as I blow out a slow breath and focus on carefully shading in the empty space where Katniss Everdeen has draped her hand loosely over my heart.

 

* * *

 

"Try to keep going, Peeta."

Exhaling, I lower my head, starting to pick at the bandage on the back of my hand before remembering to stop myself. The healing scar now covered only by a loose dressing, it’s grown annoyingly itchy.

Dr. Aurelius waits, my sketch of Katniss holding the dandelion resting on the end of the bed between us.

I stare at it for a minute, still fumbling for the right words. It probably shouldn't have come as a surprise when he asked about them in our sessions. Not that I really wanted to show the sketches to anyone, him included, but it was a little hard to justify refusing after he'd overriden the objections of all the other doctors and trusted me with the pencils.

"I . . . can't exactly describe _what_ the feeling is," I finally say. "It was just sort of . . . _there._ "

Running a hand through my hair, I look away, the words that do form ones I can't help the urge to instinctively guard, particularly from someone who wants to dig around in my head with little more finesse than the hijackers who screwed things up in the first place. And there’s no way I’m ever telling him or anyone else that it felt warm and private and kind of soft. That just for a split second, everything made _sense_ , months and months of questions with answers that could never be trusted, confusion and self-loathing choking every distorted memory I failed to reclaim, the first tendrils of feeling returning with a surety that made me want to curl up in bed and moan in relief.

I frown, realizing he’s still looking at me, and shrug my shoulders. "Right then . . . I knew why I'd done it."

"And you didn't, before?"

Leaning back in bed, I consider the question. "Not really. That's why I wanted to see her. You know, back in Thirteen? To see if something would start to make sense if I did."

Dr. Aurelius writes for a moment and then straightens, adjusting his glasses with one hand. "And now? Why do you think you threw her the bread?"

"I wanted to protect her." I don't look at him, choosing instead to stare out the window at the gray winter morning while snowflakes swirl down.

There's a weighted silence and then he leans forward. "May I see the others?"

The noise in the back of my throat escapes before I can stop it. His eyes flick up. Not meeting them, I wave a hand in grudging acquiescence and flop back against the pillows.

He flips the pages in silence, pausing to rotate the final sketch for a more careful look.

"This is the one you worked on last night?"

I grunt in confirmation, earning another faint frown.

Gesturing to the drawing, Dr. Aurelius nods. "Can you describe what you remember happening?"

More agitated by the second, I fold my arms and shrug. He peers at me, brow furrowing deeper. Unable to hold back any longer, I ball both hands into fists.

"Do you get to see her?"

The scratch of the pen stops. Glowering in his general direction, but without direct eye contact, I shake my head. “I mean, you _are_ treating her too, aren’t you? Just like Annie and Johanna?”

The last part is admittedly a guess, Annie having shrugged when I asked, but it _feels_ right, the probability he would’ve been randomly assigned two victors and not more of us less likely than the alternative.

Suddenly on edge, I pick at a thread on the leg of my loose hospital-issue pants, desperate enough to cling to the hope of an answer I should probably know by now isn't coming. Dr. Aurelius clears his throat, voice calm and annoyingly unruffled.

"Peeta, if you don't feel like talking any more today, we can always end our session early."

_And there it is._

I scoff and roll my eyes. He just waits, reading over his notes without even bothering to look at me while I debate telling him to go fuck himself. It rolls around on the tip of my tongue as a minute turns to two, the voice in the back of my mind taunting it on.

But then I catch a glimpse of Katniss' face on the page between us, mouth soft and slack in sleep, and anger is once again replaced by the urge to rip open the scar her mouth left on the back of my hand and cradle her close to me if only for a few fleeting moments of agony.

Blowing out a long breath, I keep my eyes affixed to a point on the ceiling.

"Why haven't I remembered anything else?"

Dr. Aurelius doesn't answer right away. "You have to be patient, Peeta. You've made considerable progress over the past few weeks. Last night you were able to use the techniques we've practiced to prevent yourself from fully entering a flashback state. That's really quite--"

"If this is working, then why hasn't anything else come back?" I burst out, running a hand through my hair in frustration. "You told me to go through as many memories as I could, record them on that fucking audio thing, and I _did_ \--we sat here going through them for hours--"

"Peeta--"

"--but none of it is _doing_ anything." Halfway yelling it, I look away for a minute to calm down, not wanting him to sedate me again. "I have the same _fucking_ dream over and over, every night, but it never--"

He raises an eyebrow, waiting for me to continue, but I just shake my head.

"This is the one from the train?"

I grunt in confirmation. He flips through his notes.

"You've stated before that this particular memory doesn't feel like it’s been tampered with. Does that still feel true?"

My leg starts getting sore and I sit up a little more to shift it. "It's not shiny at all. There's nothing _in_ it that feels like they were trying to turn me against Katniss. I’m not even sure they knew we used to,” my face grows hot, “spend the night that way. It's just--"

Dr. Aurelius nods and begins to write.

Swallowing, I look down, mumbling more to the imprint of Katniss’ teeth than to him, "In the other one, the one with the bread, I was so . . . _sure._ That it was real. Standing there, watching her pick the dandelion, I knew without a doubt it was _mine_ , not something that someone else put there."

"Yes," he says quietly. "And given the uncertainty you've lived with every moment since the hijacking--false implanted images and hazy recollections you can never fully trust--a memory that strong must have felt especially valuable."

Unable to look at him, I pick at the thread on my pants again, voice thick and chest tight when I finally manage to speak. "So tell me how to get others back."

After a moment, he clears his throat.

"Peeta, I know this answer isn’t what you want to hear, but in large part, the solution may giving what we’ve already been doing time and space to work.” He holds up a hand when I start to interrupt. “It may also be beneficial for you to reestablish some of your old routines.”

“Such as?” I counter, frowning.

Dr. Aurelius affixes me with a patient smile. "You're sketching again, which is good.” He raises an eyebrow. “But we’ve talked before about the importance of you baking again, getting out of your room more--"

I laugh sharply at this, but he ignores me and continues.

“--and taking back some of the things you used to enjoy before the Hunger Games and the war disrupted your life."

 _“Going through the motions,”_ I mutter, mimicking not only the suggestion itself but his stuffy Capitol accent.

“Yes, that’s right.” Ignoring my tone, Dr. Aurelius smooths his tie. “You might be surprised how much it can help to reestablish a sense of normalcy. At first it may seem silly, but one day you could find--”

"Yeah, I’m allowed out into the common areas for an hour a day," I remind him. "Accompanied by one of the nurses, and never anywhere there aren’t ten cameras. There’s nothing _normal_ about it. You really think it’s safe to let me in the kitchen where they keep all the knives?"

We stare at each other for several seconds, and then Dr. Aurelius sighs and adjusts his glasses.

"Peeta, you asked me how to increase the likelihood of more memories from before your hijacking reemerging. It is my theory, after listening to your account of _what_ has come back and _when_ , that you've been capable of recalling these emotions from your earlier interactions with Katniss all along, but that your hijacked side, which up until now has been significantly stronger, has successfully repressed any conflicting emotions from your primary personality that threatened to break through."

Pausing to let that sink in, he slowly nods.

"Instead it forces you into a flashback or transfers the emerging emotion into anger. It's only now that your work with reverse hijacking is starting to gain traction and the physiological after-effects of the venom have lessened with time that you're coming to a place where you should be able to feel things again with less and less interference."

Finally he's silent, allowing me a chance to mull it all over while he waits.

"Maybe that makes sense," I say at last, "but I haven't had anything come up until now that felt like that one memory did."

"Not consciously, no, but I suspect if you think back carefully you’ll find there were probably many instances you were being subconsciously driven by emotions retained from before the hijacking far more than you may have realized at the time."

"Such as?"

He flips through his notes. "What about the incident with Katniss in the cafeteria at District Thirteen?"

I grunt under my breath.

“That was different.”

He waits a minute. “Was it?”

Anger rising, I refuse to look at him.

"I didn't feel anything back then except pissed off by what she’d done."

"Then you'll have to explain something to me, Peeta." Dr. Aurelius folds his hands, voice calm. "With an entire cafeteria full of people to sit with, why target Katniss at all?”

Ignoring him, I pick at the edge of the bandage.

“You're quite personable when you choose to be, certainly capable of sustaining a conversation with a new acquaintance for the course of a meal--”

Jaw clenched tight, I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have _had_ to sit somewhere new just because of _her._ They were _my_ friends too--”

“Why walk up to the one person at the one table you had to know would cause trouble?” He raises an eyebrow, continuing when I don’t answer. “Why pick a fight likely to get you put on restrictions for days unless--”

"That's not what I did," I burst out, practically shouting. "It was _Gale._ "

Breathing hard, I turn away when heat crawls up my neck, the words sounding that much more pathetic the moment they hit my ears, so much so it’s easy to picture Katniss laughing even after I squeeze my eyes shut and try to force the image out. But her voice echoes mine, calling his name in desperation just like she did that last day at Snow’s execution. _Gale_ , not Peeta. The question of who Katniss Everdeen can’t survive without playing out in front of the cameras with the sort of dramatic flair Panem hadn’t seen since the Games, it’s a wonder the ratings spike didn’t make Plutarch Heavensbee come in his pants.

"Peeta?"

Jerking at the sound of his voice, I blink and hunch my shoulders, grabbing the sketchbook off the end of the bed before he can take it away.

"You can go now."

Dr. Aurelius studies me for a moment and rises from the chair, dragging it back to the corner of the room.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Peeta."

I swallow and flip back to the drawing of Katniss, not bothering to answer him.

 

* * *

 

When the door to my hospital room in Thirteen slides open shortly before the evening shift change, it admits four doctors instead of the usual one.

_Katniss. Haymitch. Hijacking. Venom. Tracker Jacker. Snow. Capitol. Rebellion. Hovercraft. Quarter Quell. Twelve . . ._

After demonstrating sufficient exposure tolerance to a list of words pre-determined to be triggers, I’m asked to review some of the clips from the Games they’ve shown me before, explaining their version of events in my own words. It’s without a doubt the harder of the two tasks, especially considering half the time I don’t believe most of what I’m saying. But the questions are nothing new, nor the long list of tests probing my reaction to various forms of stimuli.

It is the frowns I receive upon answering in a manner of which they had previously indicated approval that give me pause.

Finally the head doctor steps back and gestures to the guards at the door. I make no move to protest when they hold up the shackles, extending my wrists with a calm, complacent smile.

"You remember the rules we discussed," he warns, and I catch a look exchanged between the others.

Ignoring it, I simply nod. "Of course."

We stare at one another. And then with obvious reluctance, he steps aside so the guards can escort me from the room.

Our walk to the end of the tunnel that forms the hospital wing takes place in silence. I know the older of the two guards is Greer, the one whose face is riddled with pockmarks, Sanders. They slow at the end of the hallway when I do, coming no closer in a silent reminder we are not friends. Not acquaintances. And nor am I even someone whose presence they grudgingly tolerate. That despite a solid month of cooperative behavior, I am neither liked nor trusted.

I clear my throat and turn over one shoulder to address them. "Which way is it?"

Greer gestures with his chin. "Left." His fingers flex on the butt of the gun, voice quickly losing what little patience it held. "Let's go, Mellark. Doc said you get half an hour."

It's no better five minutes later once I've gone through the serving line while people stop to stare, been issued a tray I can't quite grip with my hands cuffed, the bowl of thick, savory stew threatening to slide across its slick gray plastic surface and crash into the two pale, flavorless slices of bread I already know I won't enjoy, and stand surveying the open room, unable to stop myself from searching for the one person I’ve just spent an hour back in my room silently reminding myself I shouldn't _want_ to see.

It happens in an instant. A movement I almost don't catch out of the corner of my eye as Finnick gestures wildly in the air. The ensuing laughter that erupts at the table around him. Delly smiling and shaking her head as she turns to the smaller figure just to her right who sits hunched over a bowl identical to mine, nibbling at a piece of gravy-soaked bread.

The tray lurches where it rests balanced precariously on my fingertips. Katniss bends to take another bite, mouth small and wet and pink as it slowly wraps around the spoon. In the sixteen days that have passed since she stalked out of my hospital room, I have tried every hour of every day not to think of her. Of the way her braid hung crookedly over one shoulder. Of the brief flashes of confusion that passed through her cold gray eyes. And yet there is no denying that along with the immediate surge of hatred that comes as I study the angles and curves of her face, there is a disconcerting sense of . . . _something_ that floods my chest as I stand, rooted in place, heart thudding uncomfortably, mouth having long since gone dry.

And then, before I have time to question _what_ it might be, to draw a breath, or even to frown, Delly reaches for something across the table and I see who is seated on Katniss’ other side.

The air vacates my lungs in the space of a beat, the sight of Johanna waving her napkin in obvious annoyance, of Finnick staring adoringly at Annie all but unnoticed as I watch Gale lean over and nudge her elbow, murmur something meant just for the two of them in the protected crevice just behind her ear.

I don't realize my feet have started moving until I'm there. She's laughing at something Finnick said in the moment our eyes meet, guilt and panic reddening her cheeks as she chokes on a mouthful of bread.

"Peeta," Delly exclaims, the prolonged seconds of hesitation that follow marking the statement as suspect. "It's so nice to see you out . . . and about."

Only Johanna seems completely unfazed. "What's with the fancy bracelets?"

"I'm not quite trustworthy yet." Watching Katniss cover her mouth in a poor attempt to hide another strangled cough, I gesture to the guards. "I can't even sit here without your permission."

"Sure he can sit here. We're old friends."

Greer shifts in place, but finally nods his assent. I take a seat. The conversation immediately dies off, spoons clinking against bowls, everyone studying their stewed turnips like they were the most fascinating thing in the world.

Elbows propped at a sharp angle, Katniss sinks lower every second, steadfastly refusing to meet my eye. I watch the spoon tremble in her fingers as she tries to lift it to her lips, a wayward bite of potato and onion tumbling back into her bowl.

Johanna wipes her mouth and states matter-of-factly, "Peeta and I had adjoining cells in the Capitol. We're very familiar with each other's screams."

Flinching, I duck my head before Katniss can see, just catching Finnick's angry glare as he circles an arm protectively around Annie. He leans closer to murmur something in her ear with such tenderness it draws an ache dull as an old knife buried deep in my chest. Unable to look any more, I face my bowl and start forcing down mouthfuls of bread and beef stew even though I can barely taste a thing.

"What?" Johanna continues harshly. "My head doctor says I'm not supposed to censor my thoughts. It's part of my therapy."

No one answers her. Risking another look at Katniss, I note she's stopped eating altogether and is pushing one last potato around her bowl through a lake of gravy, complexion pale and mouth unnaturally flat like she's barely able to keep it steady. Gale glances over in concern. Anger flashes again, and with it, a note of dark satisfaction when Katniss seems to shrink even further into herself.

Setting her spoon down, Delly clears her throat.

"Annie," she says brightly, "did you know it was Peeta who decorated your wedding cake? Back home, his family ran the bakery and he did all the icing."

The jolt this time is smaller, more contained, because despite any feelings of loss or regret Delly's words might stir, there's never any anger behind them, no bitterness or thinly-veiled rage threatening to cut down everyone and everything in their path like the finely-sharpened blade of an axe.

Annie cautiously peers around Johanna’s shaved head, hair trailing dangerously close to her empty bowl before Finnick lovingly lifts it out of the way. I grit my teeth.

"Thank you, Peeta. It was beautiful."

The words soft, our eyes meet, and I catch in the brief quiver in her chin that she's thinking it too, what the others could just as easily overlook. _Annie, Johanna and me_ , seated in a row the same way we were back in the Capitol. There for each other’s beatings. For the electrocutions. For the rapes. For screams that went on for hours until vocal cords gave out. For filthy, blood-encrusted fingers clawing desperately at scraps of cold meat and bread the guards would spit and piss on or worse before sliding through the crack under the door, hatred, desperation and shame words insufficient to describe what it was to grovel for every last crumb while they laughed, the three of us forever linked in a way none of the others would ever really understand.

"My pleasure, Annie," I say quietly.

Finnick stands and takes both their trays. "If we're going to fit in that walk, we better go." Nodding briefly to me, he helps Annie up, never letting go of her hand. "Good seeing you, Peeta."

It's as I stare at their linked fingers that an inexplicable anger starts to rise, something in the trusting way her hand fit into his threatening to send it flaring out of control, every small flex and shift in direction graced with a well-practiced fluidity that suggested they had moved that way together a thousand times before. Risking a look in Katniss' direction, I find her pulverizing her last bites of potato with the flat edge of her spoon and refusing to lift her chin no matter how insistently Gale nudges her arm. My lip curls.

The only one of us who had returned from the Capitol to find someone who cared waiting, it was little wonder Annie alone had come through the worst of it unscathed.

I let out a humorless laugh. "You be nice to her, Finnick. Or I might try and take her away from you."

But Finnick just shakes his head. "Oh, Peeta," he says lightly. "Don't make me sorry I restarted your heart."

The table goes uncomfortably quiet and I stare down at my bowl, hating Katniss that much more for having turned them all against me.

Delly waits until Finnick and Annie are gone to frown. "He _did_ save your life, Peeta. More than once."

"For _her_." It's impossible to keep disgust from lacing even the most impersonal reference to her, so I don't bother trying, nodding once in Katniss' direction. "For the rebellion. Not for me. I don't owe him anything--"

"Maybe not--"

The first words she's spoken since my arrival, the sound of her voice causes the hair at the back of my neck to stand on end and my heart to race, a visceral reaction I can neither control nor contain. Swallowing, I lift my head, unafraid to meet the steely fury of her anger from across the table.

"--but Mags is dead and you're still here." Staring back at me, Katniss wads her napkin into a ball. "That should count for something."

I lean forward.

"Yeah, a lot of things should count for something that don't seem to, Katniss." Waiting a beat, I frown. "I've got some memories I can't make sense of, and I don't think the Capitol touched them. A lot of nights on the train, for instance."

Our eyes remain locked for only a handful of seconds before she looks away, but the slow reddening of her cheeks is proof enough to make up for all the answers I can never trust her to truthfully share.

Barely resisting the urge to gloat when Gale tenses beside her, I gesture with my spoon between the two of them. "So, are you two officially a couple now, or are they still dragging out the star-crossed lover thing?"

"Still dragging," Johanna announces once it's clear Katniss has no intention of doing anything other than scowl at a gravy-sodden slice of bread.

But I simply stare across the table at her, glean from the stubborn set of her jaw and angry slit of her eyes that she feels no remorse, regrets _nothing_ that she's done. Perhaps even blames _me_ for keeping her and Gale apart for so long.

_Whore._

My hands clench into fists. Katniss watches out of the corner of one eye, seemingly unable to look away as I slowly force my fingers to unknot, breathing tight and shallow as if she's finally coming to understand that no matter the hours, days, and weeks of therapies they might strap me to a bed and force me to endure on her behalf, there's a part of me that will always see her as a monster, _always_ hate her for what she's done.

Beside her, Gale makes a sound under his breath. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself."

I force myself to look at him for the first time.

"What's that?"

"You," he says bluntly.

Barking out a laugh that sounds infinitely more blithe than the hole forming in my chest, I shake my head. "You'll have to be a little more specific. What about me?"

It's Johanna who answers.

"That they've replaced you with the evil-mutt version of yourself."

No one attempts to contradict her, not even Delly.

Gale chugs the last of his milk and turns to Katniss, voice once again low even though he must know we can all still easily hear.

"You done?"

Anger, bitterness, and for one sickening moment, _envy_ , roll over me in waves when she stands to follow him, sparing not so much as a glance in my direction. The table left empty but for me, Delly and Johanna, I don't know how long I stare down at the bits of meat and congealed fat left in my bowl, only that the spoon in my hand is the same muted gray of Katniss Everdeen's eyes, and that the moment I finally look up is when Delly begins to yell.

For a girl I can't remember ever shouting at me when we were kids, she's awfully good at it.

I stop listening after the first few sentences about how Katniss hasn't done anything wrong and it’s all my hijacking to blame, and stare past the guard at the door where she left. Wondering if she was letting _him_ take her back to her room, wherever that was here. If _he_ was the one she used now to hold her at night so she wouldn't have to be alone when the nightmares came. Hating that I even cared. Wondering why I would have _ever_ cared about a girl who clearly cared nothing for me.

_Enemy. Fiancee. Lover. Mutt._

I don't realize I've started speaking aloud until I hear Greer's voice behind me.

"Looks like you're all done, _Lover Boy._ ”

I start to protest that I’m not, but discover someone has, in fact, finished my stew. Yanked unceremoniously from the bench, I am led away while Delly continues to yell, without so much as a goodbye from Johanna, and with the image of Katniss Everdeen and _him_ seared indelibly into my brain.

 

* * *

 

“Are you treating her, too?”

Dr. Aurelius doesn’t look up from his clipboard. Rolling my eyes, I prop an arm on my good leg and gesture in the air.

“Will you at least _ask_ her if she hates me?”

He finishes writing and clears his throat. "What would make you think that, Peeta?"

Shrugging, I fiddle with my prosthetic and stretch out on the bed. "She seemed pretty mad after I stopped her from swallowing the nightlock."

His voice is calm.

"Wasn’t there a point during the fighting here in the Capitol that your positions were reversed?”

I grunt but don’t answer, both of us well aware that there was and where he’s going with this, both of us also equally aware how much I hate his stupid head games. He waits a minute and prods again.

“In that instance, didn't Katniss intercede in much the same way on your behalf?"

"It's not the same," I argue, mostly to shut him up.

At this, he smiles faintly. "How so?"

"She's not very forgiving."

Studying my face for a moment, Dr. Aurelius begins to write. He doesn't push, even when the silence stretches out, and I realize I'm starting to kind of like that about him, even if there's no way I’m ever telling him so.

Staring out the window, I finally exhale.

"It's stuck in my head.”

“What is, Peeta?”

I swallow. “The way she looked at me, that last second, right before they ripped us apart. She--"

I mess with the drawstring on my pants, not looking up.

"She told me to let her go, and I said, 'I can't.'" Heat crawls up my neck, shame and anger constricting into an indiscernible knot when my voice cracks at the end. "And then she . . . turned away from me, started screaming for _Gale_."

His name comes out somewhere between a curse and a sneer, something close to the way I’m pretty sure he usually says mine.

If Dr. Aurelius is surprised, he doesn't show it. Picking up his pen again, he carefully writes everything down. _"I can't."_ He raises an eyebrow. "What did you mean by that when you said it?"

I frown. "She wanted to kill herself--"

"Yes, that much I understood." Dr. Aurelius pushes his glasses up. "It’s your choice of words that seems more important at the moment. Sometimes what comes to mind unprompted--what we say when there isn't sufficient time to pick and choose our words--winds up holding a greater degree of truth than we might otherwise give it credit for."

Sighing heavily, I slump back on the pillow without bothering to answer, the conversation having taken an annoying turn I hadn't anticipated. He waits a few seconds and continues.

"Of all the things you could've said, _this_ is what came out with no time to prepare and in a moment of great stress. That you _can't_ let Katniss go."

Exhaling, I rub my face. "I don't know. Can we talk about something else?"

“Of course. What would you like to--”

“Where is Katniss?”

Dr. Aurelius is silent for a minute, and then leans forward. "Peeta, do you remember what we agreed on at the start of this session?"

I make a derisive sound under my breath, not remembering having _agreed_ to anything at all, his insistence we try spending the first fifteen minutes on subjects _other_ than Katniss sounding not entirely unlike an admonishment.

“So what, I’m supposed to just sit here, pretending to give a fuck for fifteen minutes of head doctor talk?”

Setting the clipboard aside, he slowly nods. “It’s important we--”

"Fine." Folding my arms, I turn to stare up at the ceiling. "What is it you want to talk about?"

Dr. Aurelius sighs. "Peeta--"

"--and how many more minutes do we have left?"

He ignores the question, but after a moment, continues in a quieter voice. "Part of the work we need to do in recovering your memory is to help you reestablish your sense of self independent of Katniss." Flipping back through his notes, he clears his throat. "You told me last week, _'She's everywhere in my head, but none of it makes any sense. One minute I think I want to kill her. I hate her, I'm so angry. And the next, I want to--"_

"Yeah, I remember," I cut him off, face once again starting to flame.

"The vast majority of your memories were formed independently of Katniss. At some point we need to expand our discussions to take on a broader scope."

Grunting, I shake my head, failing to hear how pathetic the next words will sound until they’ve already left my mouth.

"But the most important ones happened _with_ her."

"Perhaps," he allows. "But from my understanding of the circumstances, it was sixteen years before the two of you first spoke. We can’t just ignore that period of your life or treat it as if it doesn’t matter."

My cheeks grow hot. He doesn't say it unkindly, but it still stirs the vague recollection of Haymitch laughing and reaching for a bottle of white liquor while pointing out the same, the clear insinuation I was something of a pussy for never having worked up the courage to talk to her still less embarrassing than the remembered term I'd overheard the doctors in Thirteen use for what they classified as a years-long preoccupation only exacerbated by the effects of the hijacking.

_Fixation._

"Peeta?"

I refuse to look up at him, instead picking at the bandage on my hand, hating him for trying to rip her away from me and ashamed to admit there were nights I still tucked the second pillow from my bed up under my chin in the same place she used to occupy, hoping the final seconds before sleep came would find her close to me, if only in the tracker jacker-poisoned wasteland of my mind.

Blowing out a breath, I turn the next sentence over and over until at last it grudgingly forms on my lips.

"I keep . . . dreaming about her."

Dr. Aurelius nods, waiting in silence while I frown and shake my head.

"--but it's never _right._ I'm back on the train. Katniss is screaming.” I pause and lick my lips. “But then it always switches to something else before I can remember what really happened."

"Switches to what?"

Impatient to keep going, I start to answer and stop, scrubbing a hand through my hair. "Just . . . does it matter?"

"Perhaps, yes." He sets the clipboard aside and leans forward. "Sometimes when we don't or _can't_ deal with an issue consciously, it finds a way to come out instead through whatever subconscious pathway is available--in this case, while you're asleep."

He leaves it at that, but it's not hard to see where he's going with it. I grunt.

"So you’re saying this is all my fault?"

"No," he says gently. " _None of it_ is your fault. But you asked me the other day how to help your memories return faster and right now you're purposefully avoiding every one of the topics we need to eventually discuss in order for you to start really improving."

I cross my arms, about to tell him to go fuck himself, but something else comes out instead.

"Such as?"

He raises an eyebrow and waits, probably debating whether or not I really mean it.

“Well?” I demand. “If we’re supposed to discuss everything on this list of yours, shouldn’t I at least be able to _hear_ it?”

Dr. Aurelius clears his throat. "Your time in District Thirteen. The bombing of Twelve and subsequent loss of your family. The impact of your hijacking episodes on reestablishing meaningful relationships with others, including but not limited to the episode that resulted in the death of the soldier from 13.” He pauses, eyes not leaving mine. “And the six weeks you were tortured here in the Capitol."

I turn to stare out the window, gut suddenly feeling about like my leg did when the mutts ripped a chunk out of it in the first arena.

_Because of course I got to keep that one._

"That's some list," I mutter under my breath, still not meeting his eye. "I talk about all _that_ and you _still_ won't tell me where Katniss is?"

As usual, he ignores the question. "Peeta, you don't have to talk about anything you don't want to. Or even talk at all. But _you_ are also the only person who can decide at what point you're ready to take the steps to start getting better."

He pauses, voice gentler. "When you’re ready, I would suggest picking one topic to focus on, whichever you feel most comfortable starting with, though I appreciate none of them are particularly easy--"

"Has it been fifteen minutes yet?" I interrupt, turning to glance at the wall panel.

Dr. Aurelius gives me a patient smile, one which I don't return. A little voice in my head announces I'm being rude, but the other part of me just doesn't care. He straightens and picks up the clipboard.

“In your dreams where you’re on the train, is Katniss asleep like in your drawings, or awake?”

“She’s . . . well, neither, I guess.” I frown. “She’s screaming.”

“Why haven’t you drawn that?”

“She . . . no.” Frustrated, I shake my head. “She’s--I can’t get to her. I can hear her screaming.”

He continues to write. “So you never _actually_ reach Katniss at all.”

I think about it. “No. Not since--”

He finishes writing and looks up expectantly. I fiddle with my bandage.

“Not since she shot Coin. Before, it was more like the sketch.”

Nodding, he writes that down too and gestures to the drawing pad left out on my nightstand. “Have you done any more work on it?”

The change in wording from last time is subtle, but there. Asking _about_ it. Not requesting to see it directly unless I offer first. After a few seconds of stiff silence, I lean over and grab it, flip the pages until Katniss Everdeen once again rests on the end of the bed between us.

"What comes up for you, looking at this?"

Exhaling, I shake my head. "I already told you I can't remember."

"I mean now."

My eyes flick to the page. Her hair trails a dark, uneven path past her cheek, brow slightly furrowed as if she's struggling to escape the monsters that haunt us both even with me there. I swallow, chest growing tight.

Dr. Aurelius leans forward when my breathing picks up. "It's okay, Peeta."

I frown at his attempt to get in my head, not wanting to feel anything but anger towards Katniss after everything she did to me. Not looking at him or the sketch, I tug at a loose thread on the cuff of my pants until my breathing evens out.

"She used me,” I finally mutter. "She knew I wanted to protect her. Knew I . . . _cared_ for her and that she didn't feel the same way. She would have nightmares and I would hear her scream, go to her and hold her until she fell back asleep. And then after the first few nights we just started going to bed that way."

Writing it all down, Dr. Aurelius slowly nods. "And did anything else happen while you were in her room?"

Face reddening, I shrug. "As far as I remember, no."

He's silent for a minute. "Peeta, even knowing all that, why do you think you still went to Katniss night after night?"

The room grows very still and for a second I debate not answering, fairly certain he won't push the matter if I refuse.

But the truth is there. Waiting on the tip of my tongue. A kernel of raw, indignant hurt, small and deadly potent as a single nightlock berry. All but begging to be spit back out and freed.

"Because that's what she and I do."

I say it quietly and with no small trace of bitterness, breath hitching as I feel the echo of her fingers ghosting over my forehead, chest so tight I can feel my heart pound at the remembered pain of seeing her leave the cafeteria in Thirteen with Gale.

_Protect each other._

Swallowing, I stare down at the back of my hand.

"And that day in the cafeteria?" His voice is soft.

It’s a long time before I answer. “I was mad at her.”

He nods. “Yes. And what else?”

I shrug and trace over the imprint of her teeth, unwilling to say aloud what I suspect both of us are already thinking.

You can’t lose what was never really yours to begin with.

 

* * *

 

I stiffen the moment she rounds the corner of her tent, head down and fingers clutched nervously around the worn strap of her pack. Seated on the camp stool across from me, Gale does the same.

The four hour watch has been filled by more long silences than words, Gale and Mitchell whittling on scraps of wood close to the heater while I frown and try to piece together what bits of information the former has offered about Twelve. The dry goods shop where people from my part of town bought soap. The sharp scent of pine and decaying earth that filled the air after a heavy rain, for the space of an hour or two, washing the stink of coal dust away. The square in the center of town where the bakery once stood, every detail fuzzy and indistinct in my memory as it is sharply etched in his.

He doesn't bring her up and neither do I.

Katniss slows as she approaches us and stares off into the distance, chewing on her bottom lip. I frown, but it's Jackson who speaks.

"Hawthorne, Boggs wants to see you."

It's subtle, but impossible to miss. The moment of hesitation. The faint whitening of his knuckles. The brief sour twitch at the corner of his mouth. And then Gale rises without a word, nods once to Katniss as she trades places with him by the heater, and stalks off to find Boggs.

Leeg takes up position a few yards away, close enough to see us, but not in Mitchell's abandoned chair either. Twisting Finnick's rope around my fingers, I listen to the sound of Katniss breathing for a minute, finally risking a cautious glance up.

Her eyes are still trained on the ground, the toe of one boot scuffing at nonexistent flaws in the dirt as if she's desperate for _any_ excuse to put off having to look at me. So I just stare at her instead, take in the unremarkable color of her hair and small, flat mouth that never seems to hold a smile. Watch her poke her tongue out a little nervously to moisten her lips. Wonder if they feel as chapped as mine do.

_It'd be just like shooting another of the Capitol's mutts._

The huff escapes before I can stop it. She starts at the sound. Our eyes meet for all of half a second and then hers dart away again. Frowning, I watch her dig under one fingernail, the slight jerk in her chin almost faint enough to overlook had I not noticed it the previous night just before she dove back into her tent.

_Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunset. At least, that's what you told me once._

And then like the last trailing tendril of warmth in a dying fire, a shadow flickers at the edge of my memory, twirling like a leaf caught in a curling, fanciful gust of wind before dancing away. Swallowing, I study Katniss as she chews her lip.

"You . . . wore an orange dress when we were in Seven."

Her hand begins to quiver and is quickly stilled. She peeks up cautiously at me through her eyelashes, hair hanging past both cheeks in dark, tangled curtains I have the sudden, confusing urge to tuck back.

Frowning, I clear my throat. "Real or n--?"

 _"Real,"_ she croaks, immediately lowering her voice when Leeg moves one hand to the butt of her gun. Straightening, she plays with the tail of her shirt almost nervously for a few seconds, and then adds, "Cinna made it for me."

I nod.

A minute passes.

"We . . . danced?"

Katniss steals another look in my direction, cheeks darkening when she realizes she's been caught. Letting out a strangled sort of cough, she tugs at her shirttail again.

"That's right."

I don't say anything for so long my mouth goes fuzzy and dry, lost in trying to piece together jumbled images of her smiling and twirling in my arms. Elaborately arranged trays of food set out on lavish tables. Lights shining in my eyes as I descend stairs. The music ends and Katniss' gaze drifts up from my chin, tongue swiping across the bottom edge of her upper lip as she leans in to--

Instantly recoiling, I blink and shake my head. Katniss frowns.

"There were little chocolate tarts." Not looking at her, I clear my throat. "Set out on a tiered display. You said you wanted to try one, but I ended up finishing it for you."

She stares for a few seconds and then slowly nods, brow still quizzically furrowed.

"Real."

She flinches at every word as if they're tied to the trigger of a bomb. As if she secretly dreads what horrible truth I will remember about her next. We work our way painfully through parts of the first Games. Haymitch passing out in his own vomit. Her preference for lamb stew with dried plums. Rolls smeared with goat cheese and topped with slices of apple in the cave. And finally, back to Twelve.

"There was a cat."

This time there is no mistaking the scowl that immediately follows.

"Real," she answers grudgingly, muttering something I don't quite catch under her breath.

"What?" I say sharply.

"Nothing." Shaking her head in obvious annoyance, she chews her fingernail to stall for time, the effect disgusting given the filthy state of her hands. "He's _Prim's_ cat. Buttercup."

I wrinkle my nose at the name and for half a second it looks like Katniss is trying not to smile. Turning away, she quickly disguises it as a cough.

Another silence follows.

"He would yowl and wind himself around my ankles whenever I came over."

"Real." She scowls again and scuffs her toe in the dirt, pushing her hair behind one ear. "He thought the cheese buns were for _him._ "

I frown again. "Cheese buns?"

As fast as it crept up, any hint of an emerging smile vanishes. I watch a mixture of shock and hurt twist its way across her features, unsure how I am supposed to feel in response.

_Elation. Satisfaction. Confusion. Frustration. Annoyance. Rage._

Katniss Everdeen, who despite everything I’ve been through will always view _herself_ as the person who’s suffered the most as a result of my hijacking, an ingrained, _infuriating_ self-centeredness that cannot be blamed on any lie created by the Capitol. Lip curling in disgust, I look away, fighting to ignore the thin sliver of uncertainty snaking a path through my gut, a feeling that by now I’ve come to identify as practically synonymous with anything connected to _her_.

A sound from the right makes us both jerk up. Leeg shifts her open pack to one knee and bends to pick up the fallen canteen. After a moment, I turn back to Katniss.

"Like the ones we used to make at the bakery?"

She doesn't answer.

Anger rising, I raise my voice. _"Like the ones--"_

 _"Yes."_ She hisses it, eyes slitted.

We glower at each other for a minute and then she turns away. It takes half a dozen knots in Finnick's rope before my breathing slows. Swallowing, I don't look up.

"I used to make them for you?" This time she barely jerks her head. "Why?"

I don't miss the hurt that passes through her eyes. It's a long time before she answers.

"My mother asked you over for dinner one night.” Her voice is flat, all emotion carefully removed. “And after, you and Haymitch were playing chess by the fire."

She pauses while a gust of wind rattles tent flaps and sends leaves scuttling by.

"Haymitch was laughing at how many I had eaten." Rubbing the end of her nose, she stares off into the distance. "You brought them over every day after that."

I don't trust myself either to look at her or speak for close to twenty minutes.

Twining the rope carefully around my fingers, I lick my lips. "There was a book. We . . . sat together and worked on it while you ate them. You would watch me draw."

The change in her breathing is immediate. Straightening a bit stiffly, Katniss rubs her arms as if she's cold and nods, not quite meeting my eye.

"Real." Her voice is softer.

After a minute I add, "And I think one night I might’ve carried you upstairs. To your room."

She squirms and glances in Leeg's direction. "Real, but that was earlier. After I fell and hurt my foot."

"Oh." Letting that sink in, I wait a moment and peer over at her. "I see."

We listen to the hum of the heater for a little bit, the sun sinking ever lower in the late afternoon sky.

"How did you know I like to sleep with the windows open?"

She flushes and looks down again, picks at a hangnail until it starts to bleed and then chews it nervously. "You . . . you told me once."

I think back, trying to remember. "On the train?"

"Yes," she says guardedly.

Her shoulders hunch then and it's obvious she knows what I want to ask, what both of us know she doesn't want to answer. Not what had happened _on_ the train, but _after._ How she could have clung to me night after night as a means of surviving her nightmares only to later abandon me all alone to deal with mine.

The question forms on my lips. Hovers there as I silently shout it, five, ten, fifteen times in my head to make sure I have it right, fully prepared to relish the seconds of humiliation she will undoubtedly feel. But as I catch sight of the sun setting in the evening sky just behind her ear, the words stick in my throat.

And for a moment, I forget to breathe. The pale blue of late day fades to shimmering buttercream yellow and then to the soft orange of freshly split pumpkin rinds. Clouds stretch in long bands of pink and violet across the evening sky, their wispy fingertips glowing ethereal with the reflection of the day’s last dying rays of light. And for the first time since coming back from the Capitol, I am seized by the sudden, irrepressible urge to paint.

A long-forgotten tingle forms at the back of my neck. Katniss swallows and slides her eyes timidly in my direction, shrinking smaller every second where she perches with one knee pulled up against her chest.

_Still not particularly pretty._

But as I stare at her face bathed in the radiant glow of a sky I’d almost forgotten loving, I realize that no matter how much I want to, I cannot hate the girl who held on to _this_ for me.

And so instead, we sit together in silence and watch the sunset.

 

* * *

 

"This is a dumb idea."

Staring down at me with her arms patiently folded while I finish double-knotting my shoelaces, Decima doesn't indulge me in an answer, just stands there until I reluctantly push off the bench and retrieve my sketchbook and box of charcoals from the row of gleaming white lockers along the physical therapy room's outer wall.

Nodding once to the orderly at the desk, she swipes her badge and signs me out. Hadriana waits for us outside, unsmiling, hand tucked into her coat pocket where I don't have to try too hard to imagine she's spent the last few minutes fingering the dose of sedative I'll be on the receiving end of if I try anything.

This wing of the hospital is usually crowded, even more so than the burn unit three floors down where I still have to go at least once a week to get my skin grafts checked. It's one of the few places where nobody stares at me like I'm some sort of freak, a fake leg, no eyebrows and a body crisscrossed with scars still better than some of the other patients made out.

At least on the outside.

We reach the bank of elevators. Decima leans past me to press the call button while Hadriana stands some distance behind. I shift my weight and cautiously scan the hallway, checking for anything that might provide more information on Katniss' whereabouts, Dr. Aurelius having made no secret of his disappointment upon being forced to reschedule my physical therapy to an isolated setting with at least one member of his staff always present after I overheard a trainer say her name and lunged across the room and over a rack of weights to get to him.

I crane to try to see through a frosted glass window, catching what sounds like a television playing in the next room. Decima clears her throat, something in the little look she throws my way hinting she knows exactly what I'm doing. Annoyed, I step back.

"Going through the motions," I mutter under my breath. "He practically has a tie assigned for each day of the week."

After a moment, she smiles.

"That he does." She checks her watch and glances at Hadriana. "I suppose you'll just have to trust him."

I scoff. "If they wanted me to trust him, they shouldn't have assigned a head doctor from the Capitol."

Decima doesn't say anything but I watch the corner of her eyes harden just slightly behind the rim of her glasses. The elevator opens and the three of us step on. There's another young man on there already, dark hair, slight build, maybe a couple years older than me at most, and the button for our floor is already pressed.

Which is never a particularly good sign.

He's dressed in regular clothes and doesn't seem to require a team of armed escorts like I do, but he also doesn't smile and as if by mutual agreement, we retreat to our own corners.

No one says anything the rest of the ride up to the psychiatric floor with its stricter security protocols, and it isn't until we all stop at the nurse's station off the elevator that I catch the odd puckering in our silent fourth companion's lips when he swallows.

The recreation area is just down the hall from the nurse's station. It's filled with large, comfortable chairs and a couple of bookshelves that have been recessed into the wall. There’s even some sort of large game table with a short net and round wooden paddles. A chess set left out in the far corner of the room immediately causes me to frown and think of Haymitch.

No television. Nothing sharp or heavy enough to be remotely dangerous.

I make a sound under my breath, not needing to look up to know there is surveillance equipment wired into the walls, just like everywhere else, that even in the event my _restrictions_ are further eased, I will still be monitored.

Decima sits a few yards away. Picking an armchair by the window, I carefully angle the sketchpad in my lap before flipping to the last marked page, propping it across my good leg to protect its subject from view.

She stands perhaps ten feet away, still holding her bow, arms lowered in the wings of her Mockingjay suit like those of a wounded bird that knows it will never again take flight, the emptiness in her face choking off air to my lungs no matter how many times I tell myself it isn't real. That somewhere Katniss is safe. _Alive._ It does nothing to erase the finality in her eyes as she leans forward to whisper something to her bow no one else was ever meant to hear, that moment the one I began to rush forward, the moment I _knew._

Frowning, I turn to Decima. "I wouldn't think the Capitol would allow Avoxes to be treated here."

She nods. "Until recently, they weren't."

"So do they, what, just write everything down in their sessions?" I tap one end of the pencil against the edge of the paper.

“Some might.” She still doesn't quite look at me. "There's also a language of hand signs."

I finally pick up that she's annoyed with me.

Flipping to an open page, I settle back in the chair and start to draw, not saying anything for close to an hour. When I pause to stretch a sore spot in my back, Decima glances up at me from her book, tucks a wave of blue-streaked hair behind one ear, and turns the page. I stare out the window.

"There were two Avoxes with me in prison, Darius and Lavinia. I never saw either of them use it."

The next part I don't say aloud, not eager for the same reaction Johanna got in the cafeteria back in Thirteen for _not censoring her thoughts_ , because besides Dr. Aurelius, most people here seem to freak out about things like that. So I don’t tell Decima that they sometimes kept the lights out for days except for a single bulb out in the corridor for the guards. That I'd learned Lavinia's name by the filthy scratch of her finger in the dirt only days before I'd watched her killed.

"Not all of them know it." I nod, waiting for Decima to continue. "Some just know bits and pieces. It can take years to become fluent and many might have been in positions that were too highly placed for anyone to get to them--risk exposure. The risk to those who tried to help was high."

For a minute she's silent, perhaps weighing how much to tell me. Finally she tips her head to one side, voice soft and thoughtful.

"It's being brought out into the open now, since the old government fell . . . activists who went down into the tunnels at night, smuggled in enough illegally-copied manuals to teach the first groups, brought food and medicine, tried to help those they could cope with what had been done to them."

I absorb this in silence, thinking of Lavinia and Darius, and last of all, of Pollux shaking beside me in the tunnels, unable to sleep. Pollux, who'd been mutilated and undoubtedly tortured for a crime none of us knew, but who had eventually moved past it, been the one to lead us back into the Capitol as Katniss tried to kill Snow.

Still trying to decide whether to ask Decima anything else, I turn at the sound of a door closing out in the hall. I can't see much of them through the narrow window cut in the door, only enough to identify the Avox from the elevator, his fingers moving so fast they appear as a blur. It’s the voice that answers him that catches me off guard, one I'm by now far too familiar with, laced with a particular Capitol pretentiousness that never fails to make me want to roll my eyes.

Except now even _that_ makes me feel a little bad.

I go back to drawing and don't look up again until a quick rap at the door breaks the silence. Dr. Aurelius comes in with a clipboard tucked under one arm, smiling first at Decima before turning my way.

I snort. "You always knock in here, too?"

But the words doesn't come out with their usual edge and maybe he notices because he cocks his head slightly to the side and peers at me quizzically for a few seconds.

"Peeta, are you ready for our session?"

I don't answer, but collect my sketchbook and follow him through the door. My room has been cleaned and searched while I was out, which happens at least once a week, only now I can't help but wonder who does it.

Dr. Aurelius pulls his usual chair around and I sit on the bed.

"How are you feeling today?"

I shrug. He asks the same thing at the start of every session, at least the ones where he doesn't walk in to find me strapped down and screaming at him.

After a minute passes he tries again. "You seem quieter than usual."

Swallowing, I rub one finger over the line of fresh pink scar tissue that's formed on the back of my hand, tracing the marks left by Katniss' teeth.

"You won't tell me where Katniss is."

But even that remark lacks its usual bite, and we both know it. Dr. Aurelius folds his hands in his lap, just waiting.

Uncomfortable, I look away. "Is Annie coming by again this week?"

He studies me for a minute and then clears his throat. "Her treatment is confidential, just like yours, but I'd be happy to pass along the message that you'd like to see her again."

Nodding, I stare at the glaring white walls of my room. _Annie_ , who's crazier than me and has been for years, but who isn’t a threat to anyone and therefore doesn't have to stay here.

"There was an Avox on the elevator," I finally say, absently thumbing loose pages in my sketchpad. "I saw him on the way back from physical therapy."

Dr. Aurelius nods. "Did seeing him trigger something for you?"

I shake my head. After a minute, I pull off my shoes and flop back on the bed. "Are there lots of them here?"

Dr. Aurelius considers the answer. "Some." Pausing, he picks up his pen. "What did you think when you first saw him?"

We're back to his favorite tone, the calm, and overly clinical one that never fails to grate on my nerves, particularly when he decides to start digging around in my head.

Annoyed, I blow out a breath. "Nothing.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Nothing? You didn’t think anything at all?”

Letting my head fall back on the pillow, I take a few breaths, trying to calm down, waiting until my voice is even to answer. “I didn't even realize he was an Avox. He seemed,” waving one hand, I shrug, “perfectly normal."

Dr. Aurelius finishes writing.

"There's something I want you to consider, Peeta." Leaning forward, he laces his fingers behind one knee. "If you _hadn't_ realized he was an Avox, would the encounter still have bothered you?"

Getting pissed off all over again, I stare out the window while he continues talking to himself, wondering if he's like this in everyone else's sessions.

"It didn't--"

"The term _Avox_ literally translates to _'without a voice.'”_ He pauses for a moment. "It is no accident that Snow's regime chose a method of torture designed not only to brutalize, but to _silence_ its victims.”

"What the fuck does this have to do with me?" I snap, the fact that I can’t meet his eyes betraying that on some level, I already know where he’s going with this.

He waits a minute.

"Peeta, do you remember what you told me yesterday, the part of the conversation between you and Katniss that came back?"

_How come I never know when you’re having a nightmare?_

I still refuse to look at him, but it comes unbidden to my mind all the same. Two brief fragments of speech, the first of which made me cry hot, lonely tears while clutching a pillow tight to my chest, that she might have cared enough to bother asking about my nightmares offering a sliver of hope where before there had been none. But somehow I know it isn't what Katniss said that we were really talking about at all. It hadn’t been from the start.

_I don't think I cry out or thrash around or anything. I just come to, paralyzed with terror._

Exhaling heavily, I lean forward and run both hands through my hair. "Why won't you tell me where Katniss is?"

He answers calmly. "We've been over this, Peeta."

"What, that she's in a safe and secure place?" I bark out a harsh laugh. "Fuck that and fuck you." Blinking when I realize snot and tears have started running down my face, I drag my arm under my eyes. "Tell me where she is."

Dr. Aurelius just stares back at me. Chest heaving, I look away.

"I feel like shit. Every day. All the time."

"I know, Peeta."

Jaw clenched so tightly it starts to hurt, I fold both arms across my chest. A minute turns to two. Finally I swallow, voice hoarse.

"He looked fucking normal."

Dr. Aurelius offers nothing in response. Grabbing a couple tissues from the box by my bed, I dry my face, and after a moment, slump back against the pillows. He picks up his clipboard and starts flipping through his notes.

My first attempt to say it comes out closer to a cough. Dr. Aurelius glances up to raise a quizzical eyebrow. I let out a breath and wipe my palms on my pants, slowly nodding.

"We can talk about Thirteen."

 

* * *

 

It might have been that all of it mattered.

Delly yelling in the cafeteria. Johanna's refusal to be silenced. Finnick's quiet devotion to Annie, woven like knots worked in a well-worn piece of rope into every steadying whisper and reassuring smile until it was unmistakable even in her darkest moments, sure as the clasp of their linked hands. What Dr. Aurelius later said. The longing quiver in Katniss' voice as she gave me back the sunset, and with it, the little part of myself that she kept safe.

Or maybe none of it at all.

Because when her screams pierce the night some three and a half months later back in Twelve, the first cool, fragrant breezes of spring swirling in through the curtains of my open bedroom window, it is no different from the day she huddled small, cold and starving in the rain under our apple tree. The day I burned the bread.

Heart pounding, I hurtle down the stairs with all the natural grace of a one-legged groosling. Turn at the bottom so fast my arm slams into the banister. Set off barefoot in a limping run across three wet lawns.

It's one memory that never does come back. Not completely. Katniss later fills me in on everything she can, long, painful conversations held in each other's arms that as often wound as help us both. But I never fully remember how it felt to hold her at night as we slept on the trains. Whether I resented the six months she all but ignored me. Whether I’d loved her too much to care.

Pajama pants askew and hair mussed, I trip climbing onto her porch, fumble with the front door and thunder up the stairs.

_"Peeta."_

What I am certain of, is that by the time I reach her side and try to gently shake her awake, I've finally come to understand what she meant that last day in the Capitol, what it was in her eyes as she stared down at her bow. _Peeta_ , not Gale. His name what she screamed in the moment she was ready to die, mine the one that forms on her lips as she fights to escape the terror of her nightmares, desperately wanting to live.

"Katniss, wake up." Voice low, but urgent, I squeeze her shoulder again. "Kat--"

And with a start she jerks up, head knocking into the underside of my chin.

Groaning, I rub my jaw and curse under my breath, all of two seconds passing before Katniss, still shuddering, recovers her bearings enough to grab my hand and coax me onto the edge of the bed.

 _"Peeta."_ Even in the faint moonlight filtering in through her open window, I see fresh tears fill her eyes.

Lifting a hand to her cheek, I use the pad of my thumb to trace them away.

"You're alive." The words come out coarse and scratchy as the dull gray blanket from my hospital bed in Thirteen.

Her teeth chatter, bottom lip still trembling, and as I watch her catch it between her teeth, we're once again facing off just as we did across the campsite outside the Capitol, something in the weight of her stare rooting me in place.

But this time there is no conflict. No hesitation. And no resistance. The moment I open my arms, she rushes into them, small, cold fingers digging into my back as she buries her face in my neck.

Curling one arm protectively around her shoulders, I draw the other hand slowly through her hair, solidifying the memory of its length, texture and scent. _Katniss Everdeen_ , who smells faintly of smoke and wood from the fire we watched together after a quiet supper of stew and the cheese buns that I painstakingly relearned to make, of lavender shampoo and honeysuckle and peppermint tea. Of _home._

She shudders when my lips tentatively brush the crown of her head, a puff of breath ghosting hot against my neck, but it is as her arms tighten reflexively around my middle as if she worries I might be preparing to go that my chest swells with a rush of tingling warmth.

There would be many conversations in the coming weeks and months. Some go better than others. Several end with shouting and tears. Others we have many times before they can finally be put to rest. But on that night, it is enough just to hold her.

Drawing Katniss closer, I stroke her back until her breathing evens out, letting my arms relax once her head grows heavy against my shoulder. She sits up a little when I shift to adjust my leg, wiping her eyes and nervously grabbing my hand.

Neither of us move. I watch her chin quiver in the faint light, head tipped down so her hair trails in dark, silky curtains past both cheeks.

"Peeta?" Coughing, she quickly clears her throat. "I, um . . ."

I smooth her hair behind one ear, waiting. And then she reaches over to pull back the bedspread. Hesitating only briefly, I climb in beside her.

For a moment it's awkward. Hands have forgotten where to go. Her knee jerks when it first brushes mine under the covers. But after I lift my arm, she tentatively slides closer. And then her head settles into the space between my shoulder and neck, and it feels like she's always fit there.

Small, cold fingertips come to rest lightly against my chest, her hand hovering inches from her mouth as she first tests the words and then quickly rescinds them, almost a full minute passing before they emerge in a pleading whisper as pale and fragile as she still is, some days barely able to look at me across the table at breakfast, the girl who once brazenly shot an arrow at a roomful of arrogant Gamemakers salivating over a roast pig having purposefully starved herself one bite of eggs at a time until she was a sickly, thin shadow of herself.

"Stay with me."

My hand finds hers in the dark, the other still combing lightly through her hair until I feel her relax into my side. Katniss Everdeen, who I will guard until she finds her way back to herself, just as she once did for me.

Katniss Everdeen, who part of me has never forgotten that I loved.

And so I whisper a word, just one, into the fire-singed ends of her hair. "Always."

 

* * *

 

Comments are like a perfect sunset on the Training Center roof with Peeta. Would love to hear what you thought :)


	3. Somewhere You Can't Get Hurt

_”Destroying things is much easier than making them.”_

 

* * *

 

The morning I finally ask her about Gale, Twelve’s muggy summer air is laced with the scent of primrose blossoms and the sticky heat of impending rain.

Pale light filters in through a gap in the curtains as I lie awake, staring at the rough-hewn beams spanning the width of the ceiling. The one in _my_ bedroom, not hers. She balked when I brought up the subject the second night while we dawdled beside the fireplace in her living room, dancing around the idea of sharing a bed, clearly hoping I planned to continue showing up at her room unannounced like I used to on the train, and only reluctantly agreeing to switch off houses after I pointed out it would give me more time to bake her cheese buns.

Her hair has come loose from its braid during the course of the night. Stubborn as she is, dark strands obscure her mouth and creep across our shared pillow to tickle the side of my nose. Careful not to disturb her, I delicately brush them away.

Another gust of wind swirls the curtains and draws shimmering fingers of light into the room. And tucked snug against my chest, Katniss finally stirs. A puff of air from the warm crevice in the blankets smells faintly of lavender. Soap. Wood. Skin. For well over a week the nights have been too sticky for sleeping in anything but underwear, the t-shirt and long cotton pants that leave me tossing and turning worn entirely for her benefit.

Her fingers knot in the loose fabric of my shirt, shoulders curling just a bit as if anticipating I might move away. But when my fingertips graze her hair, she softens and then whimpers almost inaudibly, pressing into my side.

After a minute, the fingers on my chest slowly unfurl. I turn to stare up at the ceiling. Hand keeping time with the slow rise and fall of her back, I continue to stroke her hair in the hopes it might coax her into staying just a little longer, nights together and mornings like this the only time we have physical contact.

Something shuffles just outside the window and gives an indignant honk, a flurry of smaller but only marginally less obnoxious clucks blossoming excitedly in its wake. Katniss shifts beside me.

"Stupid geese," she grumbles, a halfhearted scowl forming even as she doesn't bother opening her eyes.

"Mm-hmm," I murmur in answer.

Fingers drifting back to her head, I smooth her hair away from her face and stretch my other arm. Katniss yawns and arches her back, stretching out like Buttercup waking up from a nap. Toes brush the top of my foot under the covers.

"Let’s sleep a little longer," she mumbles into my chest. "We were up half the night."

"Sae will be over soon." I continue stroking her hair, resting my cheek against the top of her head when she makes a grumpy noise of agreement. "Are you going to call Dr. Aurelius later?"

Flipping over on her back, Katniss blows her bangs out of her eyes. "We're supposed to talk this morning anyway."

I nod. After the second full month I was home, Dr. Aurelius and I decided to decrease my phone sessions from three per week to two. Katniss still calls him every other day, mornings as likely to find her up at dawn with a bow in hand, heading off to the woods as wrapped in her quilt, lying despondently in bed.

Not quite looking at her, I continue to toy with her hair. But I don’t ask what she plans to do later. Or pepper her with teasing questions about whether she wants me to bake her cookies or cheese buns as soon as we’re done with breakfast. Or make any effort to engage her in the other little whispered conversations we usually exchange on mornings when we’re feeling too lazy to get up. After another minute passes in silence, Katniss glances over at me, breathing growing shallower once she finally notices something is off. I swallow, still not meeting her eyes.

She stiffens inch by inch. Arms folding like the scarred, nervous wings of a bird that’s unsure whether to take cover or flee. Lips pressing together until they’re pale as strained cream. Feet starting to squirm under the covers until at last she gives in and sits up in bed, hugging her knees close to her chest.

"Real or not real?" I say quietly. "I did this in the cave."

She lets out a short huff, jaw tightening imperceptibly, and glares at the fat square pattern of the quilt. At best, uncooperative. More likely, annoyed. Because no matter how useful a tool the soldiers from Thirteen might have found it, and even if to Finnick and Gale, it was just a gesture to help someone who was once a friend or a slightly less awkward way to pass the time, to Katniss Everdeen, _Real or Not Real_ is rarely anything short of an accusation.

"Real."

Hair spilling forward so it partially blocks her profile, Katniss peers over at me and chews her lip.

Everything about her posture suggests she’d like nothing better than to dart from the room and sneak back across three lawns to her house. Or make some excuse to hide in the bathroom in the hopes I'll feel guilty and drop the subject. But that's one thing Dr. Aurelius has insisted we work on. She’s supposed to stay and listen, not run off and hide at the first sign of trouble. And I'm not allowed to say things are okay and then get mad about them later. He wants me to slow down and really think about how I'm feeling before I answer. Not react one way and sulk or hold it in when people don't do what I want them to. Or get _passive-aggressive_ , as he likes to call it.

"Everything that happened in our first Games was for the cameras."

She immediately frowns, tone sharp. “We _just_ talked about this last week.”

"Real or not real?" I demand again.

Katniss shakes her head, expression darkening. " _Not real_. I told you that before--"

"Then which parts were real?" It comes out harsher than I intend and her eyes widen in surprise.

She falls silent. And after a minute, shrugs, jaw still set defiantly. Chest starting to hurt, I turn to stare out the window, struggling to stay calm.

"Do you honestly not know or do you just not want to tell me?" I struggle to lower my voice, but an edge still creeps in. Because no matter how many times I’ve tried to get her to discuss it, begged, cajoled, and sulked when she hedged and fell silent, she’s never given me a straight answer.

And I don’t get one now.

Shrugging again, she props her chin on her knees and refuses to look at me. My hands begin to shake, anger rising, solidifying the question that has silently tormented me for days. Weeks. Months.

"Did you sleep with Gale?"

Guilt floods me when she sucks in a sharp breath and I barely suppress the nervous impulse to beg the words back. Soften the blow. Tell her it’s all right, that she can tell me. That it doesn’t matter what happened back then as long as she promises to stay here with me now. But the thought of doing so causes something far more sinister to come alive where it's lain dormant, dark and damaged in the back of my mind, screaming that it _isn't_ okay, refusing to so easily absolve her of this and allow it to fester any longer.

"Peeta."

I flinch at the pressure of fingers, small, cold and calloused, tracing my chin, forcing me to look at her.

" _Not_ real. I _never_ slept with Gale." She gestures to the rumpled blankets strewn across the bed. "Not like this. And not like," cheeks darkening, she bites her lip, _"that."_

Her eyes slide away from mine, the strangled sort of way she halfway chokes out the last word marking it as the truth. Something unclenches in my chest.

"Oh." Silent for a minute, I reach for the hand that has drifted to the comforter and toy with her fingers while I test the words in my head. "But you were . . . together?"

Clearly still mad I’ve brought the subject up at all, Katniss pulls her fingers from my grip and scowls, fiddling with the edge of the sheet.

"It wasn't like that."

"Then what was it like?" I wait until it's clear she has no intention of answering. "You kissed him?"

Her shoulders hunch a little. Something I can’t read as anger or defeat passes briefly across her face and she huffs out an annoyed breath before nodding in response.

Punched in the gut, I stare down at my hands, a new thought forming even as I beg it not to. "Did you let him do anything . . . else?"

Katniss bristles at the question. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I shrug, unable to look at her and well aware I’ll be in far more trouble if I dare elaborate. Sighing, she closes her eyes.

"Twice."

Images come racing. Gale’s self-assured smirk. His hand snaking its way up her shirt. Into her _pants_. Something inside me screams with rage at the thought of her willingly touching _him_ and I have to blink to clear my head, not realizing right away that she’s said something else. “What?”

She glares, lips pressed in a thin, angry line. “We kissed twice, all right?”

For several seconds, I simply stare.

“You kissed him twice?” I repeat it carefully, making sure I hadn’t misheard. “That’s all?”

Katniss nervously fingers the ends of her hair, but nods.

Relief is warm and shaky, the weight lifted so overpowering my hands start to tremble in its absence. And it’s followed almost immediately by a nervous, jittery sort of uncertainty, the painful need to know _more_.

I swallow and rub the end of my nose. "Um . . . when?"

Katniss runs a hand through her hair, not meeting my eyes. "I don’t want to talk about this."

Her voice is sharp, obviously annoyed.

Not reacting, I shrug. “I think we should be honest with each other. Don’t you?”

She picks at her fingernail for a minute, finally blowing out a breath. "It was the day we filmed the propo in Twelve" she hesitates when I don't say anything, "and then another time in Two."

As fast as relief has come, it's gone, something black and ugly churning in its place.

"'The Hanging Tree,'" I say quietly.

She doesn't answer and doesn't need to, guilt written plainly in the way she’s staring down at her hands. I don’t realize mine have clenched into fists until she jerks back in alarm.

I’ve felt many things towards Gale Hawthorne over the years. Envy. Annoyance. Outright _loathing_. The image of him moving in on Katniss, taking advantage of the time I was being tortured in the Capitol and she was freshly vulnerable from the Games to shift the pieces on the board around in his favor fills me with a hatred so vile that if he stood in the room, there would be little way to stop my hands from going straight to his throat.

And anger at _her_ as well. That she could ever have gone along with it. Kissed me the way she had on the beach then forgotten I ever existed as I lay on a table, alone and terrified, being pumped full of tracker jacker venom day after day until my heart threatened to give out.

“Katniss,” I finally whisper some seconds or minutes later, her name choked thick with years of hurt that had no voice. Swallowing, I open my eyes.

But by then, she’s gone.

 

* * *

 

"And after that?"

Blowing out a long breath, I run both hands through my hair and stare out the window, watching the last days of January fade clear and cold over the Capitol. The morning sky was a pale, brittle blue, snow dusting window ledges and rooftops all the way out to the ominous mountain ranges in the distance.

"Peeta?"

I blink. "What was the question again?"

Dr. Aurelius regards me silently for a minute. "How many hours at a time, on average, would you estimate you were left in restraints the week following the experiment using Delly Cartwright?"

Tapping my thumb against my good leg, I make a sound under my breath. _Experiment using._ Not _visit from_ or _talk with_. There’s something about the way he says stuff like that without batting an eye that makes me feel sort of weird, like he can see straight through all my answers. But in a way better, too, because he's refusing to play their game, taking out all the fancy wording and pretense any of it was really intended to help me.

Shrugging, I look away.

But Dr. Aurelius won’t drop it quite so easily. “More than two?”

We sit there forever until finally I give in and exhale. _“Yes.”_

He makes a note. “More than four?” I start to fidget. He leans forward. “What did they do when you had to use the bathroom?”

Swallowing, I wipe my palms on both legs. “Is this really--”

“Answer the question, Peeta,” he interrupts. “What was their procedure?”

I pick at the scar on the back of my hand. “The orderlies would walk me in there.”

“Without any form of restraints?”

Seconds tick by while I start to sweat.

“Shackles,” I finally mutter, embarrassed when my voice cracks about as badly as it did the time Rye caught me in the bathroom mirror practicing asking Katniss if I could borrow a pencil and didn’t let me hear the end of it for weeks. Or maybe it was _months._

“And stay with you?”

I don’t look at him. “Yes.”

“And when--”

"Isn’t any of this in their records?" I interrupt, frowning. “Decima won’t give me a fucking headache tablet without writing it down first.”

"No, it isn’t." He doesn't add anything else.

"Is that unusual?"

Dr. Aurelius considers the question for a moment. "I'm not familiar with standard medical practices in Thirteen. Excessive use of restraint without proper documentation on a patient incapable of advocating for themselves and without any caregivers around to do so on their behalf would be cause for questions to be raised here."

I grunt. "And that's saying something."

He ignores me. "They may simply have their own set of protocols. It is noteworthy, however, that their records in general were quite thorough."

Leaning back in bed, I make a face.

"Yeah, their own set of protocols for ‘hijacked lunatic gets brought back from the Capitol and tries to strangle the precious Mockingjay.’"

Dr. Aurelius finishes writing and tilts his head to one side. "Is that how you see what happened, Peeta?"

I snort. "Wow, I walked right into that one, didn’t I?"

He doesn't respond. Pushing up his glasses, he situates himself more comfortably in the chair and stares back at me like we have all day. Annoyed, I shake my head.

"It was a fucking _joke_." Rolling my eyes, I mutter, "You must be a lot of fun at parties."

"This isn't the first sarcastic statement you've made belittling yourself. Nor the first one paired with an undercurrent of resentment and hostility directed towards Katniss."

I prop my leg up and rub the irritated spot where my prosthetic attaches. "Yeah, well. In case you didn't notice, warm, fuzzy feelings towards her weren't an integral part of my hijacking."

Dr. Aurelius folds both hands on top of his clipboard. "No, this is different--and much older. Going back at least to your first Games and perhaps even before that." I don't say anything in response and after a minute he flips through his notes. "You said something similar in the clip we watched yesterday."

Frowning, I study the bite scar on the back of my hand. It had been his suggestion we go through all the available tapes again, test the long-term effectiveness of the reverse hijacking process they'd started in Thirteen and look for vulnerabilities, clips we needed to review. The previous day's tape, Katniss bathing me by the river, taking me to the cave and telling me the story of getting Lady, Prim's goat, was only the second time we'd tried it without any morphling.

"Here it is." Dr. Aurelius glances over at me and raises an eyebrow. _"Don't light a fire. It's not worth it."_ Pausing for a moment, he continues even after I roll my eyes. _"I always knew you were his favorite."_

 _For fuck’s sake._ I don't look up. "I was kidding around."

"So you remember saying those things?"

"Has it been half an hour yet?" He had the wall panel in my room switched off for our sessions after I wouldn't stop staring at it.

"Peeta--"

A beat passes. Messing with the cuff of my pants, I finally exhale. "Can we take a break?"

Dr. Aurelius regards me silently, but sets the clipboard down and waits while I swallow a gulp of water. "I know this isn't easy, Peeta, but it's important we examine these topics."

I look out the window again, wondering where Katniss was and what she was doing. "How much longer do you think I'll have to be here?"

"It's still too early to say right now. You’ll need to stay until we can be confident you're not a danger to yourself or anyone else."

Rubbing the imprint of Katniss' teeth, I think about how to word the next question. "Have there been others?"

Writing again, Dr. Aurelius peers at me over the top of his glasses. "Others?"

"When I was in Thirteen, I asked Haymitch." Hollowness forms in my gut as the conversation drifts back, me still tethered to the bed at that point, him shaking from what I only later understood to be withdrawal tremors. "He told me they couldn't find record of anyone else recovering after being hijacked."

Dr. Aurelius doesn't respond right away. "Hijacking is a highly individualized form of torture. The results are neither predictable nor consistent, and therefore I would theorize it only stands to reason attempts at rehabilitation would fall along a similar spectrum."

After eleven years in school learning about coal production, coal by-products, coal distribution, equipment commonly used in the mining of coal, as well as how many times per hour Katniss Everdeen typically turned to stare out the window at birds singing, it takes a minute to digest everything he said, but I don't miss that he hedged around an answer.

"So there have been attempts?"

Again there's a second of hesitation as he decides how much to tell me. "Some. And that's all I'm going to say about it."

I absorb this in silence, debating whether there’s any chance he'll give me more information about Katniss if I ask or if I'll just get in trouble for bringing it up again.

"How have you been feeling since the last adjustment to your medication?"

Shrugging, I lean back in bed. "It was two weeks ago."

He nods and starts to write. "It can take some time for the drugs you were on to work their way out of your system. Has there been any change to your sleeping patterns?"

I don't look at him, suddenly feeling about like I had the previous day when we'd gotten to the part in the video where Katniss kissed me in the cave. The first time in Thirteen was still blurry in my mind, since apparently their medical team decided it was appropriate to give me enough morphling to sedate someone with Thresh's bulk and Cato's calm, gentle personality, but I mostly remember hating all of them, and especially Katniss, the sight of her leaning down to press her mouth to mine causing my stomach to churn in fear and disgust.

Watching it again with Dr. Aurelius and a nurse there had quickly grown uncomfortable in a different way, part of me still angry enough to want to hurl the television out the window and watch it crash down to the snowy Capitol streets stories below, knowing it was all an act she was putting on for the cameras, another part wishing they would both go away so I could watch the tapes of us kissing alone, try and sort out whatever _it_ was without anyone else there, the feeling hovering just out of reach twisting my stomach confusingly into knots of longing and fear every time I pictured her mouth inching closer to mine.

"They're okay," I finally say, knowing too much time has elapsed when he silently raises an eyebrow.

Glowering at him, I fold my arms and turn to stare out the window again. "I . . . keep dreaming about Katniss."

His brow furrows for a moment. "Are the dreams different than the ones you were having before?"

_Yes._

"I don't know." Fidgeting, I shift on the bed. "Sometimes."

"How so?"

Seconds pass. Scrubbing a hand through my hair, I exhale. "Why won't you tell me anything?" When he doesn't answer, I throw both hands in the air. "You don't understand what it was like for us. What we went through. I just need to know that she's all right."

Dr. Aurelius picks up his pen again. "Peeta, where do you imagine Katniss is?"

"I don't fucking know," I mutter under my breath, staring up at the ceiling because I’m sick of looking at him. "Have you been listening to anything I say?"

"Then let's try an exercise," he says calmly. "And talk through the places you worry Katniss might be to see if we can get at the root of this fear." I make a face, but he ignores me. "Where do you picture her?"

It’s another minute before I give in.

"I don't know,” I mutter grudgingly. “That she's in trouble. That they're going to execute her for killing Coin. That there's nothing I can do to stop it."

Dr. Aurelius writes everything down. "And what information do you have that might help refute that fear?"

I shrug. But eventually the words just sort of form on their own. "There would be a public outcry against executing the Mockingjay. No matter what she's done. People don't want to see her killed."

"No, they don't." He pauses. "What else have we talked about?"

I scoff. "What, that she's in a ‘safe and secure place’? I feel so much better."

"As safe as either you or I has the power to make her, yes." Dr. Aurelius raises an eyebrow. "Do believe that I'm telling you the truth?"

We stare at each other for a minute, but finally I look away.

"Maybe." Tapping my leg, I choose my next words carefully. "Will you answer one question for me?"

He finishes writing and folds his arms. "That depends what it is."

I lick my lips. "Is . . . anyone else with her?" Frowning, I shake my head. "I mean, do other people come to see her . . . wherever she is?"

Dr. Aurelius considers the question. "Anyone else, or someone specifically?"

I think about it, weighing either option, the risk he might tell me she _did_ , in fact, have visitors and not list their names likely to keep me awake far longer than simply asking if she’d seen the one person I really wanted to know about.

"Gale?" I mutter, not that it should have come as a huge surprise.

Dr. Aurelius looks me straight in the eye. "Peeta, let's be very clear. I will answer this one question and that is all. Are we agreed?"

Swallowing past a sudden lump in my throat, I nod.

"Gale Hawthorne has been in the news recently after accepting a security appointment with the new government in District Two. He did not have contact with Katniss before leaving the Capitol, nor has he had any since."

For a few seconds I can't do anything but replay the words in my head to make sure they’re real, the shock of so much information after nothing for over a month leaving me unable to think straight. I fumble to come up with a response only when Dr. Aurelius checks his watch.

"Thank you." It comes out as a croak and I don’t quite manage to look at him.

"We're out of time for today." Rising from the chair, he pulls it back to the far corner of the room. "Peeta, I want to assign you something to work on between our sessions over the next few days."

I take a breath, guessing it's something I'm not going to want to do, and that it would be a pretty dumb idea to dismiss it out of hand if I ever want any more questions answered again. "What?"

"I'd like you to do some sketches from your time in District Thirteen, but it's important they not be focused solely on Katniss. Is that something you can do?"

Fighting to ignore the uncomfortable jerk in my gut, I pick at my hand for a second before remembering not to. And then finally nod.

"Good. I'll see you tomorrow, Peeta."

 

* * *

 

They return less than an hour after my lunch tray has been taken away. Four of them. One of my regular doctors here in Thirteen. A nurse bearing an IV kit, the sight of which never fails to send my hands into spasms. And two muscular orderlies who, I know from experience, will have little difficulty holding me down while the nurse locks the restraints in place should I make any attempt to resist whatever they’re here to do.

They stop five feet from my bed and the head doctor clears his throat.

"Peeta?"

I don’t answer him, heart thudding in my ears, but after a moment, slowly extend my arms to lie along the bedrails. It’s a measure they claim is _for everybody's safety_ , including my own. In the two weeks since my rescue, the bruises on my legs, arms and torso have faded from dark red and purple to a splotchy yellowish-green. The venom has gradually worked its way out of my system, the current levels in my bloodstream no longer presenting an imminent threat to my heart. And in that time I have gradually been allowed _privileges_ such as feeding myself pudding or sitting alone for a few hours at a time without being tied down or drugged.

_But only when I cooperate._

"We've come up with another procedure to try that we believe may help correct your memories." He gestures the orderlies forward. "We're quite optimistic about this one."

With no further preamble, they strap down my arms. Tremors spread through my chest, my teeth clenching and beginning to chatter, and I want to vomit when the nurse inserts the needle.

"What sort of procedure?" I finally force out.

There’s nothing they haven’t tried. Injections of experimental drugs that made me itch like crazy, see black spots and feel dizzy for hours. Electric shock therapy. Failed attempts at hypnosis. Session after session with head doctors who reassure me while I laugh in their faces that I'm totally safe here, as if _anyone_ could feel safe with _her_ running around. But they just smile and try not to be obvious in coming up with new ways of steering the conversation back around to their favorite topic.

_The mutt._

More specifically, that she _isn’t_ one. That something was done to me in the Capitol. To my mind. That Katniss Everdeen isn’t the enemy. That _she_ didn't attack me on the night of my rescue-- _I_ attacked _her_. But by the time they get that far, I'm usually shouting too loudly to hear anything they’re saying anyway.

The cold rush of the sedative entering my arm is a silent, but familiar harbinger, triggered by remote dispenser and coming seconds before my vision starts to blur. Time to hastily yell one last warning they’ll never believe, fight against the restraints until my muscles turn to jelly and give out, seethe at the long mirrored wall of my room where doctors and onlookers who prefer _privacy_ while they gawk at me like a caged animal from behind the one-way glass are ravenously scribbling down my every word.

And then a few hours later, I wake up and we start over.

“What sort of procedure?” I repeat, voice hoarse.

"We're going to try bringing up a distorted memory while at the same time giving you a dose of sedative to help neutralize the conditioned response that's occurring as a result of the hijacking." Continuing when I frown, he points to a screen mounted on the far wall. "You'll be able to see the event as it actually occurred there. It’s our theory that you should eventually be able to reaccess the original memory."

My stomach jerks involuntarily, almost causing me to lose the oily fish stew that was on the lunch menu for the day. Because it isn’t hard to guess the part he’s not saying. Drug me until I can barely remember my own name then show me doctored tapes of Katniss in the hopes it will confuse me into forgetting she’s a monster.

I flinch and squirm away when the nurse leans down to adjust my IV line. "Wait . . . _wait_."

Bucking against the restraints, I try to twist my arm to dislodge the needle, but one of the orderlies holds me down so she can get it reinserted correctly.

“Would you just fucking wait a second?”

The head doctor flicks a button to turn on the screen, barely glancing in my direction. “Peeta, calm down.” Turning to the mirrored glass, he lowers his voice. “Start the morphling.”

 _“No,”_ I shout, still fighting to get free. “You have to listen to me. Katniss is evil. She’s fooled you all into trusting her.” They move away from the bed without acknowledging anything I’ve said. “ _She’s_ the mutt. _She’s_ the monster--”

But the final words come out slurred as if I've been drinking from Haymitch's bottle of white liquor. For a few seconds I try to keep yelling, but my tongue feels thick and immoveable, flaccid as a glob of poorly mixed dough in my mouth. Unable to do anything else, I slump back on the bed.

And that's when the video starts.

The mutt fills the screen. Frowns up at the late-day sun in the first arena. Hops around from rock to rock. Scowls as she looks around for some sort of poisonous plant to put in my soup.

It’s when she returns to the cave and inches closer to where I lie helpless and wounded, that desperation begins to rise. And with it, the urge to scream. Run. Fight. Claw my way free and push her off of me. Unable to move my arms, lift my head, or open my mouth, I can barely muster the energy to focus on the screen, the sight of the mutt looming over me, about to strike, causing a trickle of warmth to run down the inside of my leg.

The rest of the video is . . . _confusing_. Parts are the same as I remember them, like her failed attempt to kill me with the drugged berries. Others I don't remember much at all. Her applying wet strips of cloth to my forehead. Coaxing me to finish a bowl of broth one spoonful at a time. I break out into a sweat at the end where her mouth is mashed to mine for what seems like forever.

It's hours later before the morphling wears off and I can finally move. I’m alone in the room, no longer tied down, the restraints having been removed when the tape finished and they brought back one of the orderlies to change my wet pants. The head doctor returns, clipboard in hand, to ask what I remember.

And without meeting his eyes, I ask if the goat survived Twelve's firebombings.

 

* * *

 

_I do._

Under a dark sky riddled with stars and lit by an impossibly large moon, the words are bare. Innocent and untouched as freshly fallen snow. Soft as a faint dusting of cinnamon on spiced milk. Curling warm and safe around my insides in a way nothing has in so long I can barely remember what it was to feel _good_.

Her eyes find mine. Wide. Bright as the silver-tipped point of an arrow. Still she doesn't move, breathing low and shallow even as mine picks up speed. The huntress fully aware her prey has been snared.

_I need you._

I start to draw one more breath, her name pale on my lips--a plea rather than any sincere form of protest. Because both of us know I have waited to hear her say these words since before I was old enough to realize how much I wanted to hear them. Before the reapings and the interviews. Before sleep syrup hidden in a mouthful of berries. Before nightmares of the Games and being the star-crossed lovers twisted whatever spark between us had once been _real_ , all but extinguishing it before it had room to grow. Since long before a small starving girl huddled crying beneath an apple tree. Before scorched loaves of bread tossed in the rain.

And before I can finish whispering the syllables of her name, Katniss leans across the damp sand. A hot puff of breath ghosts over my mouth, tendrils of hair tickling soft against my cheek, and then her lips cover mine.

They’re chapped. Warm. Soft and pliable as pressed cookie dough. For a minute, neither of us move, breath warming the other’s cheek. And then I pull away, trying again to say something.

"Katn--"

She takes advantage of my open mouth. A small hand deftly cups my jaw, holding me in place while she tips her head to one side. Frowning when our teeth clack, I make one last effort to break the kiss, the barest flutter of her tongue past my bottom lip sending a shiver from the spot her fingers trace at the back of my neck straight to my aching groin.

After that, little registers but touch. Taste. The velvet texture of her tongue rubbing languidly against mine. The lingering smell of sticky green ointment and heaviness of the tropical humidity clinging to her skin. The deliciously new sensation of being inside her mouth. Hot. Wet. Fingers curling greedily at the back of my hair. Pulling a little too hard, the tug of it exhilarating. Her hunger setting my skin tingling.

Mouth still molded to mine, Katniss sighs softly, the sound warm as cocoa on my tongue, and I groan in response. And for perhaps the first time since we stood on the train tracks leading back to Twelve, confused, exhausted, and angry, there isn't a doubt in my mind. That this is wanted. _Real._

She’s scooted all the way across the sand, practically into my lap. Staring down at her after we break apart to pant for breath, I trace the pad of my thumb over the plump swell of her bottom lip, memorizing the scent and texture of her skin, the stormy gray of her eyes. She swallows and wets her lips. My tongue pokes clumsily from my mouth, copying the path hers made. We both lean in.

I wake just as we were about to make contact, sweaty and twisted in the sheets. It's not yet morning, the room dark except for the reflection of the Capitol's strangely colored city lights glowing eerie and artificial around the edges of the blinds. Squinting my eyes shut, I kick impatiently at the covers.

_"Katniss."_

I curl on my side, back blocking the path of my hand from the camera in the corner, and loosen my pants. I have to bite my lip to stifle a moan, my mouth and throat dry as sand, hand stroking furiously. Because it's been so long since anything felt this _good_. So long since I haven't been too confused about what I feel for Katniss one minute to the next to think about her without wanting to rip apart everything in the room. So long since whatever they did to me in Thirteen sucked away my ability to feel anything pleasurable as sickeningly as the cold liquid my prep team applied to my face just before I was launched into the arenas artificially stunted my body's ability to grow hair.

So long since I've felt like _me._

And unlike the first memory, a faint wisp of feeling I clung to desperately even as it evaporated between my fingers, this one feels sure. Unwavering. Every detail still there, just as it had been on the beach. The smell of salt in the air, the crashing waves, and the grittiness of the sand under our thighs. The longing. Desire. Wanting to press my mouth to every inch of her skin. To feel her tongue push brazenly past my lips, my girl on fire holding nothing back as we kissed on the damp sand.

Exhaling heavily, I force myself to stop. Try to ignore the ache in my balls as I straighten my pants and grope around on the floor for my prosthetic. The clock on the wall panel reads just after five, another hour and a half until room checks and breakfast. Pushing back the covers, I grab a clean set of clothes from the shelf and limp towards the one place I can't be watched by anyone, on camera the last place I want to do _this._

The shower is still programmed not to get too hot, which Dr. Aurelius explained when I complained about it being too cold was mainly a precaution against not damaging my new skin in the first few months. Not that I believed him.

I program it for the hottest setting I'm allowed, craving the humidity, choose an unscented soap and prop my prosthetic against the wall. The bench seat is positioned directly under the spray of the jets, allowing me to sit to shower. I can get my prosthetic wet if I have to, but it irritates my skin at the stump so I almost never do.

Hand gliding up and down the swollen length of my cock, I lean against the wall, allowing Katniss Everdeen to flood the back of my eyelids.

Her hands rake across my shoulders and through my hair with increasing desperation, while mine do precisely the opposite. Slowly map her body in an effort to commit it to memory, seeking out every exposed inch of skin where her wetsuit has been burned away, each delicious shiver and whimper of approval I catch in my mouth coaxing me to explore her that much softer. Slower. Until she breaks away, nipples raised in hard points under her wetsuit, and shudders like she’s about to split in two.

And in that fleeting second, just before she whispers my name and leans forward in the same breath to kiss me again like I am the very air her lungs have been denied, it is impossible not to greedily devour the need in her voice, the lust heavy in Katniss Everdeen’s dark gray eyes. To relish the effect _I_ finally have on _her._

_"Peeta."_

Her lips find a sensitive spot just below my ear. I shudder at the contact, only encouraging her. But this time there is no crack of lightning to startle us apart, nothing but the cameras inhibiting the path of her hands as she reaches between us to unzip her wetsuit and mine. _Wanting me._

"Katniss," I moan, hand stroking faster.

_Fuck._

I come violently and without warning. Her name falls from my lips again and again, a curse, a prayer, a whisper and a plea, _Katniss Everdeen_ consuming every last part of me until at last my cock grows sensitive and begins to soften, and I open my eyes to find the last pearly drops of seed trickling down my abdomen under the spray of the water and washing towards the drain.

And that's when everything starts getting shiny.

* * *

I want to kill Katniss Everdeen

_Enemy. Mutt. Fiancée. Target. Liar. Whore._

It's the one feeling that makes sense when all the confusion is stripped away. Propaganda from Thirteen. Lies Haymitch and the doctors want me to believe. To take her filthy mutt throat in my hands and squeeze the deception out of her until she can never hurt me or anyone else again.

_He's not a bad kisser either._

Only a mutt could have used me the way she did. Made out like we had that last night on the beach then shrugged it off later right before she walked out of my hospital room. Like it was nothing to her. Like _I_ was nothing to her.

I want to kill Katniss Everdeen.

And sometimes I hate myself that I don't.

* * *

I come to naked and shivering on the shower floor. Head feeling like it's been lit on fire and baked from the inside out. Body aching from my shoulders to my toes from muscle spasms that are still twitching in my fingers.

The water is off, which means I've been out of it for at least half an hour, long enough for the automatic program to finish running. Only once I shakily push myself into a sitting position do I notice the blood seeping from my hand.

 _"Shit,"_ I breathe, getting back up onto the bench and reaching around to one of the shelves for a towel.

The bathroom has a fancy Capitol-style drying mat just like the one in the Training Center, but Dr. Aurelius warned me it's not really compatible with the electrical components in my artificial leg and excess exposure to electrical currents could put me at risk of nerve pain in my stump anyway.

Something they hadn't seemed too fucking concerned with in Thirteen.

I dry off, reattach my leg, and dress gingerly using one hand, trying to avoid getting blood all over the place. After rinsing my hand in the sink, it doesn't look as bad as I feared, maybe like it did a week ago except for one or two bad spots. Squinting when the light starts to hurt, I snap it off and go back out into my room. Decima answers the second time I press the call button.

"Yes, Peeta?"

I exhale, relieved it's her and not Hadriana.

"I had a flashback. My hand is bleeding."

Head throbbing miserably, I slump back on the pillow and close my eyes, not opening them again until I hear her key the door open.

"Can I have a headache tablet?"

"I brought you one." Coming around the side of my bed, Decima sets a small tray of bandages and ointment on the table. "Can you sit up to take it?"

I make a face, but do it anyway. She puts on a pair of gloves and starts unwrapping sterile bandages. I laughed the first few times we went through this, asking her if she'd seen the tape of Katniss chewing up leaves and stuffing them in my leg wound. Decima just shook her head, reminding me I'm far more susceptible to infection now with all my burns, and that _even if we_ _do things that way in the districts_ , she has no intention of chewing up _anything_ to stick on a patient’s wound, particularly something that came straight out of the dirty forest.

The pill takes half an hour or more to start dissolving the pain, but it usually makes me groggy within minutes. I lie down, occasionally peering up at Decima's face while she applies ointment and several layers of dressings to my hand. She's not that old, maybe five years younger than my mother, but without any of the hard lines around her eyes or the mouth built for yelling. But there's still something odd about her that's hard to put a finger on, something that makes her seem to not quite fit in with the others. It took me awhile to notice, but it’s definitely there, conversations that suddenly stop when she escorts me back by the nurse's station, the sideways glances we get thrown in _her_ direction instead of mine.

I look up when she finishes and fold my newly bandaged hand across the other on my stomach. "Thank you. I still feel kind of sick. I'm not sure I want breakfast."

"Give the medication a chance to work before you decide." Decima continues packing up her supplies on the tray. "We can always have it sent up later. I'll check on you in a little while."

"Okay," I mumble and flip over on the pillow, getting drowsier by the minute. "Thank you again."

"Peeta."

Something about the way she says my name causes my stomach to churn. Too quiet. Too deliberate. Like she already knows I'm not going to like whatever it is she has to say. Frowning, I push up on one elbow.

Decima clears her throat. "I need you to give me your art supplies until Dr. Aurelius can come up here and evaluate you."

For a moment I simply stare, unable to formulate a response. But as the shock gradually begins to fade, hurt and indignation rise up in its place. That _I_ had called _her._ That it was essentially a punishment for something she knew I couldn’t control. And that it would be carried out by denying me access to the one source from which I derived any real solace here, the one place I could still see Katniss even when her image was warped and twisted in my mind.

I lick my lips, forcing my voice to remain even. "But I _didn't_ hurt myself. I already told you I had a flashback."

“Peeta--”

“If I was _really_ trying to hurt myself, why would I have called you?” I reason, not giving her the chance to jump in. “Just think about it for a minute.”

Decima nods slowly, her eyes not leaving mine. "Dr. Aurelius will review the video feed."

I shake my head, desperation rising. "But it happened in the shower. It’s not going to show up on the video feed."

She tries not to react, but I see something almost imperceptible change in her face. That she doesn't believe me. That maybe he won't either.

Lowering my head, I scrub a hand through my hair. Decima gives me a minute and then holds out her hand. I swallow, weighing the choices, knowing how much trouble I'll be in if I do _anything_ other than comply. Whether it was my fault or not and no matter how much every part of my mind screams at the thought of giving Katniss up.

Silently loathing her, I reach into the nightstand drawer and pull out my sketchpad and charcoals.

"Thank you."

Fat, babyish tears flood my eyes and I quickly wipe them on my sleeve. Biting down on my lip, I blurt the question when she's almost to the door. "What are you going to do with them?"

Decima turns. "Lock them in his office." Her voice is soft, almost as if she can guess why I'm upset.

I frown, still not looking at her. "And no one else can get in there?"

"No."

"How long do you think it will be?" I whisper, hating her that much more for making me ask.

"He's downstairs on rounds right now. A little while."

I nod and turn my back to the door. Head throbbing miserably, I pull the second pillow over my eyes to block out the light, the haunting gray of Katniss Everdeen’s eyes further away than ever as I trace a single finger back and forth along the scar left by her teeth.

 

* * *

 

When the phone rings unexpectedly right as I'm bending down to slide a tray of cheese buns into the oven, I have a fairly good idea who it is. Letting it go unanswered for a good fifteen or twenty rings while I take my time wiping off the counter, I finally hurl the dishtowel across the room and reach over to grab it, knowing he'll just keep trying until I pick up.

 _"What?"_ I growl, for half a second wondering what I'll say if I'm wrong and it's Effie calling.

But I'm not. _And it isn't._

"Peeta," Dr. Aurelius greets me calmly, the long-distance connection from Twelve to the Capitol interrupted by a buzzing swarm of static that never fails to make me jumpy. "How are you feeling?"

"Great." Rubbing my face, I snort and lean up against the counter. "Just great." There's the usual pause where he waits for me to get all the aggression and sarcasm out, and it's hard not to feel a little sorry for him, seeing as he rarely gets to talk to _nice_ Peeta. "So let me guess. She told you we had a fight?"

As usual he doesn't react, voice annoyingly calm, and I can picture his expression as he folds his hands behind the fine oak desk some craftsman in Seven must have spent months on much as he probably know I'm rolling my eyes.

"Would you like to tell me what happened?"

I scoff, nearly snapping off the dial on the oven timer. "Didn't she already give you all the ugly details?"

"We've been over this, Peeta."

And we have. What takes place in our sessions is strictly confidential. We both have to be able to trust he won't share things we've told him with the other. And most of the time I'm glad we have that rule. Thankful she isn’t privy to any of the sick fantasies the other me still has of killing her. Or the insecurities that threaten to boil over whenever I start to think about the two of us together again. And most of all, the painful details of what happened those weeks I was a prisoner in the Capitol, Dr. Aurelius the only person who’s ever heard me say parts of it out loud. But other times, it feels like just another way Katniss has of shutting me out. Because we both know of the two of us, she's far guiltier of holding things back.

Staring out the window in the direction of her house, I catch what might be a flicker of movement behind the curtains. "I asked her about Gale," I finally mumble.

"I see." He pauses. "And how did the conversation go?"

“Well, let's see.” Grunting under my breath, I look down. "We got into a fight. She ran back to her house and I had an episode. So really well, I'd say."

I rub my head tiredly.

There's the sound of papers shuffling and then Dr. Aurelius changes tactics. "How did the conversation _start_?"

And so with an annoyed sigh, I reluctantly recount it for him. Waking up. The geese. Stroking her hair. Asking about the cave and our first Games. Then about Gale. He's silent for a full minute after I finish and I'm just about to snidely ask if he's fallen asleep when his voice comes over the other end of the line.

"Peeta, have you considered the possibility that Katniss may not _have_ the answers you seek?"

Frowning, I switch the phone over to the other ear and straighten, having leaned down to check on her cheese buns. "What do you mean?"

"You seem to attribute her reluctance to talk about her feelings to an act of defiance--that she understands how she felt in the moment and is purposefully withholding that information in order to hurt you." He waits a few seconds. "What if she simply doesn't know?"

I let out a short laugh, but there's no humor to it. "She's a lot fucking closer to guessing than I am."

Dr. Aurelius chooses his words carefully, not answering right away. "Unravelling emotions can be a complex undertaking, particularly when the subject has suffered intense pain." He pauses, voice a degree gentler. "You know this from our work together."

Swallowing, I start drying dishes off the rack by the sink, but don't respond.

"To keep from being hurt again, the mind walls itself off from topics that cause the greatest emotional reaction as a means of self-protection. It doesn’t necessarily indicate true disinterest, or evasiveness for that matter, in not being able to articulate exactly what one is or was feeling at the time."

Slowly digesting it all, I finish drying the loaf pan and set it on the counter. "So I’ll never get the answers I need?"

Dr. Aurelius makes a thoughtful noise, chair squeaking as he leans back. "No, that isn't what I'm trying to imply. You and Katniss must continue working to communicate openly and honestly if you intend to interact closely with one another. But, Peeta, I want you to be careful about the manner in which you approach her for information. In a healthy, productive discussion, there should be elements of give and take on _both_ sides. And both parties should feel comfortable their choice to talk about something or not will ultimately be respected, wouldn't you agree?"

An uncomfortable feeling forms deep in my gut, words drifting back to the edge of conscious consideration, pushing stubbornly into my head no matter how desperately I try to keep them out. _Manipulative. Deceitful._

_Worthless._

Squinting my eyes shut, I take a breath. "Yeah."

"We've talked about this before--the relationship models you observed in your childhood family growing up. From what you've shared, I don't believe that's what you want for you and Katniss as the two of you try to figure out what you are to each other going forward."

The lump in my throat feels about the size of Panem.

"No," I say shortly and grip the side of the counter.

He gives me a minute to process everything before continuing. "Do you want to tell me about your episode?"

* * *

Katniss doesn't show up later to walk into town like we planned, and it’s just as well because I’m still not sure I’m completely safe to be around her again yet. So when Haymitch knocks on my door at a quarter to six to ask if I'm ready to go to her house for dinner, I shove a basket of cheese buns and a loaf of bread into his hands and tell him to make sure she eats something

I don't miss the long look he gives me, the shake of his head, or the obvious disappointment, and I firmly shut the door before I can change my mind. But as I lie awake in bed hours later, sick from missing the smell of her hair and the warmth of her body cuddled up against mine, I can't help but wish I’d let him convince me.

I'm just finishing breakfast when the front door opens and slams. Taking another sip of tea, I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

She marches into my kitchen in a faded shirt and dirt-streaked pants, throws a dead squirrel on the counter next to the sink, and barks, "It was your turn to come over last night."

I laugh softly.

"Good morning to you, too."

Katniss scowls and folds her arms. Standing to take my plate to the sink, I move around her. She doesn't say anything while I wash the dishes, chewing on the end of her thumbnail until I open the cabinet to get a second cup for her and refill the teapot from the kettle of water on the stove.

"Tea?"

Squirming in place for a minute, she nods. We sit. She stirs in a little bit of sugar and I take mine without anything, which is kind of funny when you consider that I spent practically my entire childhood frosting cookies and cakes and Katniss always had to go without. We stare at our tea for a while. After a long silence, Katniss clears her throat.

"Did you have a flashback?"

"Yeah."

She rubs her index finger along the rim of the cup. "But you’re okay now?"

I nod and we sip our tea.

Without warning, Katniss blurts, "I talked to Dr. Aurelius--"

"Okay--"

"--about us," she finishes. "Is that okay?"

She goes back to chewing on her thumbnail again when I try to meet her eyes.

"Katniss, you can talk to him about anything you want," I say carefully. "I talk to him about you all the time."

"I know," she answers in a small voice. There's another pause and then, "He doesn't think us sleeping over at each other’s houses is a good idea. Thinks it _confuses_ things. I told him it was the only way either of us could get through the night, but . . ."

When I offer nothing in response, she bites her lip. "He said I should try to talk to you. Explain."

I wait a minute to see if she'll continue. "Okay."

Katniss looks down at her tea.

"I'm not like you, Peeta. You start to talk and something beautiful comes out. As soon as I try to explain what I'm thinking, it just makes everything worse." She slowly fingers the sides of her mug. "Like yesterday."

"I'm sorry I got angry." Studying her face, I continue in a softer voice. "When we don't talk about anything at all, it feels worse."

She exhales, takes a sip of her tea and rubs the end of her nose.

"With Gale . . . I didn't want to feel anything. Or think about how I was about to die." Pausing, she bites her lip. "I just wanted to _stop_ thinking. That's why I did it."

For a minute I don't say anything, mulling over her answer, trying to decide how it makes me feel. Finally I look up to find she’s watching me. And there's something reassuringly frank in the hardness of her eyes. She may not be thrilled to be having this discussion, but she isn't lying. I clear my throat.

"Was that what it was like before?" She frowns in confusion and I reluctantly clarify. "Kissing me?"

Katniss hunches forward a little and clutches her empty mug like it’s the last bucket of water in a massive fire.

"Sometimes it was . . . just kissing. For the cameras. Or for food. And other times it got in my head. Confused me.” She chews her lip again. “I didn't have time to figure out _what_ I was feeling.”

Allowing us to lapse into silence, I think back over what Dr. Aurelius said.

“Do you still not know?”

She toys with the edge of the tablecloth. “It was,” hesitating, she presses her lips together, cheeks coloring slightly, “ _new._ And . . . something I didn't think I could afford to feel anyway. I was just trying to keep both of us alive."

She's right about one thing. It sounds about as beautiful as my leg looked while she was draining the pus out of it. Even stings a little. But it also holds the unmistakable ring of truth. And after a moment, I carefully slide a hand across the table to thread my fingers in with hers.

She lets me take it, doesn't fight. I watch her face contract through several emotions, eyes large and glassy by the time she finally draws a shaky breath.

"When Snow took you, I thought I would die. I _wanted_ to die." Pausing, Katniss swipes at the tear streaking past her nose. "When I found out Haymitch left you in the arena, I--"

"He told me," I interrupt softly, brushing another tear away with my thumb. She leans into my touch and I keep my hand at her cheek for a minute before reaching over to refill her tea.

Taking a sip, she warms the fingers of her free hand against the side of the mug, seeming to debate whether or not to continue.

"Tell me."

I say it gently, coaxingly, an invitation, not a demand. Our eyes meet for half a second before hers return to the swirling maelstrom of sugar and tannins in her tea, and I don't miss the hitch in her breath.

"And then you came back and you hated me." She clutches the cup tighter, voice so small I can barely hear. "And that was even worse."

Tears spill down her cheeks in two long tracks, wetting the heavy woven tablecloth, and with barely any hesitation I push my chair back from the table. She balks at first when I give her hand a tug, refusing to give in, but finally relents and lets me pull her into my lap. Her arms curl around my neck a little shyly, touching without the excuse of a nightmare still largely uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry," I murmur into her hair.

Katniss straightens and wipes her face on her sleeve. "It wasn't your fault."

Smoothing her hair behind one ear, I take a breath. "I'm still sorry." She stiffens and a moment later climbs awkwardly from my lap. Rising, I carry our empty mugs to the sink. "I was going to bake some cookies this morning. Do you want to help me?"

She nods, not saying much while I help her tie my extra apron, which is so big on her the strings loop around her waist twice, or while we mix up the dough, cracking eggs and measuring out sugar while I stir. It isn't until I've set the oven to start pre-heating and am sprinkling flour on the counter to roll out the dough that she swallows and spends a long time fussing with the tail of her shirt.

"Have _you_ ever done anything . . . else?"

Pulling the rolling pin from the drawer, I study her profile, needing a few seconds to understand what she's talking about.

"Oh." I laugh a little, and she immediately scowls, cheeks flushing pink. "Sorry." Clearing my throat, I start rolling out the dough. "I still don’t remember things perfectly, but I’m fairly certain I never took anyone to the slag heap, if that's what you're asking."

She chews on her fingernail for a minute, not saying anything while I finish rolling out the pale creamy dough and hand her the bowl of cookie cutters to select the first shape. Picking out a small pointed star, she presses it gingerly into the dough, partially mashing one of its arms in the process of getting it onto the baking sheet.

"But there were other girls you kissed. Before me."

It isn't a question. Nodding, I take a heart-shaped cutter and start on the far edge. "A couple. After dances and stuff. It never went much further than that."

Katniss frowns pointedly and turns to face me. "Much?"

I continue cutting out cookies, ears growing warm. She waits until after I've put the first tray in the oven and am balling the dough back up to roll it out a second time to huff out a sigh.

"I thought you said we should be honest with each other."

Exhaling, I look down, not missing the challenge in her tone. I step out of the way to let her flatten out the dough, watching her olive knuckles whiten against the wooden handles of the rolling pin.

"Daisy Messer."

Her eyes narrow as she sets the rolling pin aside and brushes off her hands. "From the fourth row in Mr. Carver's class?"

"I think that’s right." Reaching around her for the cutters, I grab the seashell one Annie sent from Four. "Best as I can recall, I walked her home after the Harvest Festival dance the year we were twelve and she stopped at the door and stood there waiting until I finally gave in and kissed her. It must have lasted all of a second."

Katniss taps her fingers on the counter for a minute and picks up the heart-shaped cutter I used earlier. "All right then. Who else?"

I roll my eyes, but answer her anyway. "Farrah Black, a year or two after that."

"Just kissing?"

"Just kissing," I confirm. She edges in front of me to lay cookies on the fresh sheet, not moving away when our arms brush.

"And was that it?"

Jaw tight, I swallow. "And then Melodie Tailor."

She turns with a scowl, eyes glinting dangerously. "Is there anyone in Twelve you _haven't_ kissed?"

Her expression makes me laugh.

"Three kisses isn't exactly a huge number. Especially when one of them was over so fast it barely even counts.” I glance over, but she’s punching out cookies hard enough to leave marks on my counter. I shake my head. “You should have heard some of the stuff my brothers used to talk about once our parents were asleep."

Still she doesn’t answer. The shift in topic effective in ending her barrage of questions, we finish filling the tray of cookies in silence. Only once I've started stirring up frosting and the warm, buttery smell of shortbread has begun to fill the room does Katniss finally speak.

"I'm glad.” Not quite looking at me, she concentrates on nervously folding and unfolding a dishtowel. “That you never . . . you know. Went to the slag heap. With anyone else.”

I study her face, unsure how to word the next question without making her upset. "If I ask you something, will you promise not to take it the wrong way?"

She stiffens visibly, starting to tuck her hands in her pockets before changing her mind and crossing her arms over her body. But after a moment, she nods.

I exhale. "I wish there was someone else I could ask, but there isn't." Giving her a few seconds for that to sink in, I gesture with one finger between us. "You and I. We didn't ever . . . um--?"

Her cheeks immediately flush pink and there's no question she takes my meaning. "No."

Nodding quickly, I finish dividing the frosting up into smaller bowls and hand her the box of food coloring.

"I didn't think we had. It's just that my memories of you are so fragmented because of the hijacking and,” pausing, I shrug, “I needed to be sure."

Katniss clears her throat, seemingly eager for a new topic as she reads the directions on the box. "So how much should I put in?"

"Just a drop or two. It's very strong."

Her hand trembles squeezing the tiny bottle and a long, dark squirt of blue dye dribbles into the frosting. Cursing under her breath, Katniss tries to catch it with a spoon.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay--"

"Maybe you should just finish the rest without me." Faltering when I start to object, she fumbles to untie her apron. "I have some things to do before dinner. Check the trap lines and bring meat to Greasy Sae." She takes a small step back. "Is that okay?"

“Katniss--”

Dropping the apron over the hook in my pantry, she all but flies towards the door, turning only at the last second to study the toes of her boots. "Will you still come over for dinner later?"

I frown, tempted to tell her no, to stop giving in to her erratic moods that always seemed to wind up hurting me more. But something in the downward curve of her mouth and nervous jumpy motions she keeps making with her hands dissuades me. I take a breath.

"Someone has to bring the bread."

It comes out more dryly than I intend, but I can’t bring myself to take it back either. Katniss raises her eyes for all of two seconds, long enough for me to watch her cheeks begin to stain with hints of red before she whirls on silent hunter's feet and flees out my front door.

 

* * *

 

Just a quick note... this chapter is part one of two... I usually like my chapters to tell a complete story within the overall story, if that makes sense, but this one was only halfway finished and already over 11,000 words, so I needed to go ahead and break it here so it didn't become too long.

Comments are like lamb stew with dried plums and Peeta to keep you warm while eating it :)


	4. No One Is Safe

Content Warning: This chapter contains sensitive subject matter including depictions of torture and sexual assault. That said, those paragraphs are fairly brief and pretty easy to skip over, so if those topics aren't for you, but you’d still like to read the rest of it. PM me over on FF or in the comments of another chapter here and I'll be happy to help you figure out where to skip ahead...

 

* * *

 

_”Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you’re working with?”_

 

* * *

 

For well over an hour, I sulk, refusing to move. Unlike my previous . . . _altercations_ with the nursing staff, as Dr. Aurelius likes to call them, I don't pace the length of the floor, page the front desk incessantly, demanding someone find him, attempt to destroy the contents of my room or scream obscenities at the camera in the corner, unwilling to give any of them, but especially Decima, the satisfaction of seeing me upset.

Instead, in the negligible privacy afforded me beneath the pillow, I silently mouth her name and trail a single finger over the scar she left on the back of my hand, waiting for the headache tablet to take effect.

_Katniss Everdeen._

Time is marked only by two things, the constant presence of pain and a thin sliver of light growing steadily stronger and sharper under the edge of the pillowcase. I watch it despondently, unable to move, and as the moist heat of each shallow breath warms the edge of my cheek, something else flickers.

 _Two_ somethings. Neither of them shiny. And neither of them good.

But like a starving man clawing for a stale crust of bread, I cling to it, loath to turn away. Because I’ve _seen_ how the first one ends. Know I'll be stirred from fevered delirium by the sound of her voice, soft as a whisper, mimicked by a hushed chorus of mockingjays. That she eventually emerges in my line of vision, bow defensively drawn, wading downstream just past the line of boulders. Know I have just a little longer to wait, maybe a few more hours, or maybe it's days, until she comes for me. Until I’ll finally know if that moment provided the old me even an ounce of clarity.

Why I was so fucking eager to _die_ for a girl who couldn’t even be bothered to _look_ for me before now.

And so excruciating as it is, I try to recall the feeling of being caked in layers of mud and plants in the riverbank, of pain so intense I all but black out any time the cold stream causes a muscle in my leg to involuntarily spasm, day after day ticking by as I lie motionless and alone, waiting for Katniss Everdeen to prove if she ever gave a fuck about anyone but herself.

Because of all the things I'm _almost_ starting to understand about the old me, I still can't wrap my head around what I must have been thinking in moments like _this_. And the feeling hovering just beyond where I can consciously touch it isn't good, brave, pure or selfless like everyone seems to swear _Peeta Mellark_ used to be. It's ugly. Confused. Afraid. Equal parts hopeful and quietly, clingingly desperate. A toxic mix of too many conflicting emotions ever to sort out.

And someplace far below the eerie reflective surface of the Gamemaker’s artificial stream, packed under layers of grime and silt where it will never be dug up except in the cold, dark hours after the sun has long since set and Panem’s anthem played as a reminder the Capitol reaches _everywhere_ , even up into the night sky, _angry_. That she brought the nest of tracker jackers down on me. That _we_ couldn’t have been allies in the first place. That after everything I did to keep her safe, confessing my crush in the interviews, misleading the Careers, fighting Cato, it never occurred to her to come for me until it was a strategic advantage. For _her_.

But there’s another part of me that gets it. The part that’s maybe always known it was going to turn out this way. That I just don’t matter enough for her to bother coming after me for any other reason.

And as my eyes squeeze shut, I feel the remembered pressure of a hand jerking me across the floor by my hair, the smell of piss soaking the blindfold. My wrists tightly bound with rope, chafed raw and oozing for hours after my cell is once again silent. The boot that makes sharp, cruel contact with the soft underside of my stomach, their laughter growing louder when I let out the howl of an animal in pain. And the desperate, cowering fear that follows when I’m forced onto my stomach, the hand returning to yank down my pants.

_“Fuck.”_

Sucking in a sharp breath, I push the pillow away and scrub both hands over my face, staring up at the sterile white walls for only a few seconds before hauling myself out of bed. Effie Trinket may swear it’s the height of minimalist décor, but just like the stylists’ insistence all tributes must be rid of _body hair_ before being thrust into an arena to fight each other to the death, it carries the same sense of utter pointlessness and perverted priorities, and like most everything else about the Capitol, does little to make me feel at ease.

I walk over to the window and push aside the blinds. The morning sky is cold and desolate, bands of high clouds stretching out to the mountains in the distance the exact haunting gray of Katniss Everdeen's eyes.

When the door slides open half an hour later, my breakfast tray still sits untouched. Decima comes around to the foot of my bed and clears her throat.

"Why haven’t you eaten?"

Shrugging, I turn back to the window. She waits a few seconds for my answer, and when none comes, folds her arms.

I scoff. "What, are we in fucking Thirteen now? I finish every last bite or you strap me to the bed the rest of the morning as punishment?"

Ignoring my tone, she regards me calmly. "You know the rules, Peeta."

I roll my eyes. But we've been over this, or at least Dr. Aurelius and I have. Unless I'm too sick to keep food down, refusal to eat is considered a form of purposeful self-injury. I don't have to lick the plate clean and I won't be punished if I don't comply, but it will trigger increased monitoring and him being even _more_ annoyingly up my ass than he already is now.

Frowning, I shake my head. "Get out."

Glaring at the door once she’s gone, I pick up the soft rubber spoon that I've apparently been downgraded to in the utensil department and load it up with cold eggs, stuffing them into my mouth. Three small sausage links and a stack of pale buttered toast triangles later, I wash everything down with the provided cup of orange juice and flop back against the pillows, trying not to think of the images slowly forcing their way up from someplace cold and dark in the back of my mind.

 

* * *

 

By dinnertime the wind is starting to pick up and I make sure all the windows are latched tightly at my house before tucking a warm loaf of sourdough bread in a fresh kitchen towel and sliding a dozen of the cookies we made earlier onto a plate.

Halfway up her porch steps, I catch the sound of a crash, indignant yowling, and several uttered choice words before the front door is flung unceremoniously open and a streak of mottled yellow the color of a wizened crookneck squash goes flying around the corner of the house.

"That damn cat." Muttering it under her breath, Katniss shoots a dark look in the direction Buttercup disappeared.

Chuckling, I lean on the porch railing. "Having problems?"

She scowls and I fight the urge to smile. "This is your fault, you know."

I laugh. "Is it now?"

Katniss narrows her eyes. Grinning, I push away from the railing and follow her into the house, slipping my shoes off at the door. The warm aroma of savory meats and spices drifts in from the kitchen along with the obvious racket of clattering pans. Peering through the doorway to find her scooping spilled greens into the fallen colander, I clear my throat.

"Dinner smells good."

She glances over one shoulder and pokes a finger in my direction. "No changing the subject." Turning to the sink, she tries to swipe the hair out of her face with the back of her wrist. "That fleabag thinks he has run of the place."

Smiling, I set the cookies out on the counter for later. “And how is that my fault, _exactly_?”

Her eyes flit to mine, something faintly playful flashing in their depths, and I can’t help the spark of longing that flares in response.

“You keep letting him jump up in your lap at the table,” she points out with a roll of her eyes, and flips on the water, the accusation holding little real menace.

"Hmm." I pretend to consider it, reaching around her into the drawer for a knife to slice the bread. "Remind me who sneaks him her bacon every morning?"

Mouth already halfway open to retort, Katniss blinks the moment our eyes meet and drops her gaze to the colander of dandelion greens, cheeks picking up a trace of color either from the accusation or our sudden proximity. Sparing her further embarrassment, I touch her shoulder lightly and move out of the way.

She chews her lip while I cut a few thick slices of bread, and I note, as I watch her from across the kitchen, that she's still distracted with trying to keep her hair out of her eyes. Sae trimmed it again for her once enough started to grow out, attempting to even out some of the singed places, but she still isn't used to having it too short to easily braid.

Setting the knife aside, I brush my hands off on my pants and limp back over to the sink, leg a little sore. "Is Haymitch coming or should I start him a plate?"

There's a brief, awkward pause. And then Katniss answers in a rush.

"No. Just us tonight." Clearing her throat, she frowns and turns her attention to dividing the greens into three equal servings. "Hand me that hot pad?"

I pass her the quilted cream one she’s pointing at, watching her bend down to take a small roasted bird out of the oven. And this time, when she straightens and her hair slips, soft and glossy, from behind the shell of her ear, I carefully reach up to tuck it back. Her eyes dart shyly in my direction, and for half a second the ghost of a smile almost forms on her lips.

 _Almost_. But quickly as all the others in the two and a half months since I've been back, it fades into nothingness, vanishing entirely before any hint of happiness has a chance to take hold. Swallowing, Katniss ducks her head and searches for a clean knife to begin carving off the meat. And I study her profile in silence.

There's no more need for either of us to pretend. No more cameras. No more Games. And no more of the false, empty giggles she tossed to the ravenous Capitol audiences while letting them slowly consume the real _Katniss Everdeen_ one piece at a time, quietly starving herself by day as we suffered through the emotional torment of the Victory Tour, crying in my arms at night.

And so I wait, every hour of every day, for her to remember what it felt like to _want_ to smile. To see her lips curl up at the corners and her eyes sparkle the way they're fixed in what fragmented memories I’ve recovered from our last day on the roof of the Training Center. The way she must have smiled after hopping off the stool in music class on our first day of school. And the way she hasn’t let herself be happy in nearly a year.

"Peeta?"

"Sorry," I mumble, and pass the next plate over for her to dish up a helping of meat, taking the full one from her outstretched hand. Setting it on the counter, I lick a dribble of broth off my finger. "I think I forgot to tell you before, but I like your hair like that."

Still concentrating on maneuvering a drumstick and thigh onto the second plate, Katniss scrunches her nose doubtfully.

"It's so . . . short."

"Well, it looks nice anyway." Leaning against the edge of the sink, I trade her the third plate for the second, not missing the slight warmth that flushes her cheeks before she turns away. "Which one is for Haymitch?"

Not quite meeting my eyes, she points at the first plate, and I hide a smile as I push away from the counter.

"Be back in a minute."

* * *

"You're quiet tonight."

She doesn't answer right away. Dinner finished, we drink tea and slowly work our way to the bottom of the plate of cookies as rain pours down outside. The wind gusts dark and blustery, spattering the windowpanes like a flurry of insistent, tapping fingertips. Nibbling one of the points off a pale blue frosted star, Katniss furrows her brow, seeming to debate back and forth a minute longer before finally swallowing.

"My mother called." Halfway choking on cookie crumbs, she quickly clears her throat. "This afternoon."

Gray eyes lift uncertainly to mine. I nod once, but offer nothing else, waiting for her to continue. It's a touchy subject. They talk once or twice a month, usually just before breakfast, stiff, halting conversations Sae and I try not to listen in on while waiting for her to come to the table and pick like a lifeless bird at her eggs and toast. They’re mornings that always seem to end with Katniss quieter than she was before they started. And more often than not, unwilling to get out of bed on her own the following day.

She finishes the cookie, chewing pensively, and when it's clear she has no intent of saying anything else, I reach across the table and stroke just inside the raised pink scar tissue on the edge of her thumb.

"How is she?" I ask softly.

Katniss still flinches. She rotates her teacup in the saucer for a few seconds, face shifting through several different emotions before eventually going blank.

"Better."

The single word is hoarse, equal parts relieved and tinged with unspoken betrayal. And after a moment, I lean a bit closer and take her hand. She doesn't fight it, letting me rub the back of her fingers while the rain patters gently on the roof overhead. Closing her eyes, she licks her lips.

"She said Annie . . . had a baby yesterday. A boy."

"What?" I breathe.

Katniss starts to speak and seems to decide against it, mouth opening and closing several times before she shakes her head.

"Did you know?" she finally asks, expression indiscernible. "That she was pregnant?"

"No idea," I answer honestly.

But somehow it all makes sense now. Why Annie visited me twice at the hospital early on and then abruptly stopped coming. How something had changed later in her voice when she called from Four, no longer frail, mad Annie who was Finnick’s frightened shadow in Thirteen, or the woman whose anguished screams I listened to in the dark, but one whose determination to move past what the three of us endured shone with a quiet strength that seemed to have no explanation and no visible source.

Katniss lifts her eyes to mine, face falling upon seeing my smile. I squeeze her hand, but don't say anything else, watching her brow slowly furrow again. Fidgeting with the edge of the saucer, she chews her lip.

"Do you talk to them often?"

"Who, Annie?" I take another sip of tea. "Every once in awhile."

She pulls her hand back to select another small cookie, not quite looking at me. And it’s only when her mouth dips a little at the edges and the next name comes out slightly softer than the last that I detect something _off_ in her tone.

"Johanna?"

"Sometimes." Watching her abruptly snap a buttery corner off the cookie and dip it in her tea, I frown. "Why?"

I get a shrug in response. Another minute passes in noticeably less comfortable silence. And then very quietly, she offers, "My mother says he favors Finnick."

Nodding, I take my time refilling both our cups. "How's Annie?"

"She says she's doing well, but--”

I raise an eyebrow, but she doesn’t continue, the clear note of doubt evident all the same. Not pushing, I pick up another cookie.

"I'm sure it must be hard." Waiting until our eyes meet, I study the sad silver flecks in her irises. "Going through it alone."

Her face clouds slightly as she stares at her tea.

Taking a breath, I stroke her knuckles softly. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

For a minute, there’s nothing but the sound of the rain. And then she blinks, something in her expression darkening.

"It feels too easy to forget." Swallowing, she quickly swipes a hand under her eyes. "The little things, you know? The way my father used to sing. His _laugh_. Finnick giving me that piece of rope when I thought I would lose my mind--"

Trailing off, she stirs another piece of cookie around her tea, eyes growing glassy. And in the pained silence that follows, I can almost see Prim standing in the kitchen again, cooing over her cat while Katniss makes a face, one’s eyes light and playful, the other’s cold as slate, carrying the weight of all those she worried for like the heaviest slab of stone. But Prim’s is the one name I don't dare say out loud unless Katniss says it first, her grief still too fresh to bear talking about her sister for more than a few minutes at a time. Leaning across the table again, I softly rub the back of her wrist.

“Those things,” she closes her eyes, "will just be _gone_."

"You're not going to forget," I reassure her, toying with her thumb.

Katniss frowns, tone sullen. "I _might_."

Rolling my eyes, I scoot closer and bump her knee under the table. "You aren’t the one they sent back with scrambled eggs for brains."

And for half a second as her eyes widen, I think I catch her fighting to hide a smile. But just as quickly, she flashes her best scowl. One of the really good ones, the kind that must scare off every wild dog, cougar and bear between here and the Capitol when she’s out hunting in the woods. And for that matter, had me too afraid to look her in the eye until we were up on a stage in front of plenty of witnesses.

"Not funny," she snaps.

I laugh and squeeze her fingers. "Oh, c'mon. If anyone’s allowed to joke about it, it should be me."

She breaks the scalloped edge off a seashell cookie and flicks it at my head, trilling in Effie’s voice, _"Manners."_

Scoffing, I snap one of the points off a star and toss it back. "Since when is throwing the cookies I brought you good manners, _Everdeen_?"

Letting go of my hand, Katniss leans back in her chair, expression growing guarded as her fingers trace slowly up and down the sides of her cup. "I told Dr. Aurelius about my family’s plant book."

Surprised, I glance up. “About us working on it together?”

"Yeah." She hesitates, staring into her cup. "And . . . that I want to make another one. For people we've lost. To remember." Not quite looking at me, she taps nervous fingers against the side of the mug. "He thought it was a good idea, that maybe it could be a project for both of us. Like before."

She chews her thumbnail and shrugs. "But only if you want to."

To this day, I still don't remember exactly how she asked me to start helping her with the plant book the first time around. Maybe it was the same, although I kind of doubt it. We can be almost assured working on the second book will mean more nightmares for her and more flashbacks for me. But as I reach across the table for her hand and she makes no attempt to pull away, there's something else there in her eyes, a quiet sort of longing, and I can't help but think this is something we _need_ to do together, no matter the cost.

And so I squeeze her fingers and slowly nod.

"I'm in."

 

* * *

 

I don't have to wait long.

Hopeful for half a second when the knock comes that he might actually _listen_ to my side instead of just believing Decima's, I want to punch a hole through the wall as soon as I see he didn't even bother _bringing_ my sketchbook. Or the pencils. Shaking my head in disgust, I turn back to face the window.

Dr. Aurelius doesn’t comment on my reaction. Pulling his usual chair around to the side of my bed, he takes a seat and flips to a fresh sheet of paper.

"Where is it?" I demand, not looking at him.

"In my office." He gestures to the bandage I'm picking at. "We need to talk about how you hurt your hand first."

Glaring, I tuck the hand in question in my armpit. "Go fuck yourself."

Ignoring me, he picks up his pen and begins to write. The silence stretches out. A minute. Two. I stare at the wall, just getting angrier.

"I already told Decima how it _fucking_ happened and she didn't _fucking_ believe me. If you want to hear it again, go watch the tape. Have her tie you down and stick you with a sedative while you’re at it, because I hear _that’s_ really fun."

Dr. Aurelius calmly finishes writing and sets the clipboard down.

"Decima was merely carrying out my instructions," he says, adjusting his glasses. "Which, when I am unavailable, are to keep you safe, secure, and as comfortable as reasonably possible until I can evaluate your--"

I laugh sharply. "If she thought I was telling the truth in the first place, she would have just bandaged my hand and left it alone."

Studying my face for a minute, Dr. Aurelius slowly nods. "Tell me what happened, Peeta."

I mess with the cuff of my pants, not risking a look in his direction. “Did you watch the tape?”

“Of course.”

I exhale heavily and rake both hands through my hair. “Then why are you--”

“Because we need to go over what happened in more detail.”

The answer betrays no particular emotion, least of all impatience. As if he has nothing better to do than keep hounding me about this all day. Annoyed, I rub a sore spot on my wrist.

"I had an episode."

"While you were in the shower," he finishes, still writing.

Glowering at him, I clench my non-bandaged hand into a fist.

_"Yes."_

He waits a moment. "How did this one start?"

Seconds tick by while I stare down at the bed. Dr. Aurelius starts to write again, the scratch of the pen making me jumpy the longer we sit in silence. I finally shrug.

"You don't remember anything at all?" His tone is neutral, but it's hard to miss the silent implication behind the question either. Or the fact that in all the time we’ve been reviewing my flashbacks, what triggered them, and what I remembered in the aftermath, there’s only been one or two where I could recall absolutely _nothing_. "What about during the episode itself?"

I pick at the edge of the bandage.

"Katniss," I admit at last. "Being back in Thirteen. Wanting to kill her."

"Why?"

I scrub a hand through my hair.

_He's not a bad kisser either._

"Gale," I mumble, not looking at him.

"Can you be more specific?"

Huffing out a breath, I slouch back in bed. Dr. Aurelius calmly continues writing. I swallow and rub my temples, head starting to hurt again.

"Can I just have my fucking sketchbook back?"

"No." He leans forward, reading over his notes. "You had an episode while in the shower, but don't remember anything specific that could have acted as a trigger. All you can recall from the active phase is being back in District Thirteen and wanting to kill Katniss because of something unspecific related to Gale, correct?"

I glare.

Dr. Aurelius waits a few seconds and then flips back a page.

"I'm also curious about something you said to Decima a few minutes ago." Waiting until it's clear I'm not going to play along with his stupid head games and feign interest, he pushes up his glasses and reads aloud, _"What, are we in fucking Thirteen now? I finish every last bite or you strap me to the bed the rest of the morning as punishment?"_

I grunt under my breath, something about the statement particularly comical when inflected with his pretentious Capitol accent.

"So?"

"So, in addition to having issue with the rude way you’re addressing my nursing staff, I'm curious why you didn't tell me about it when we were talking about method and duration of restraint before."

I shrug. "You didn't ask."

"Peeta--"

"I've been cooperating for _weeks_. Doing every _fucking_ thing you ask. I don't get _any_ credit for that?"

Dr. Aurelius stares at me impassively. "Then why did you say yesterday that you couldn't remember?"

"I didn’t lie," I start to argue.

“It sounds like you did.”

Gripping the empty cup from my bedside table, I rub my thumb past the edge, anger slowly building.

"So what, I have to tell you _everything_? Every last fucking detail?" He says nothing, only folds his arms when I turn to glare. "I get no choice in the matter? No privacy?” Lip curling into a sneer, I shake my head. “You're no fucking better than them."

Dr. Aurelius simply waits, eyes locked with mine, glacially calm. And finally he leans forward, voice soft.

"Than whom, Peeta?"

I don't answer. And after a moment, he leans back and picks up the clipboard.

"Do you want to tell me what really happened this morning?"

"Will you give me back my sketchbook?" I counter.

"That depends."

"On?"

"On the circumstances in which your hand was injured,” he answers calmly. “And whether or not I judge you to be stable enough for unsupervised access to sharp objects.”

Frowning, I pick at the edge of the bandage. "I wasn't lying the first time. I was in the shower and I had a flashback."

Dr. Aurelius considers the statement. "And do you normally shower that early?"

I hesitate, but quickly realize there's no point in lying, that he can probably just go back through days and weeks of video records and check.

"No,” I mumble. He raises an eyebrow, waiting for me to continue. "Another memory came back."

He starts to take notes, glancing up only when I fail to go on, and more than anything right then, I hate that he sits in with me while I watch the tapes, that even _this_ isn't really private. Not that much about my relationship with Katniss ever was, since all of Panem got to view it forming the first time around, everything from our first kiss to our first awkward night negotiating the sleeping bag to our first fight, but it’s that much more humiliating to have to admit exactly what I like fantasizing about while I jerk off.

"It was me and Katniss.” I poke at the cuff of my pants, not looking up. “On the beach."

"During the Quarter Quell?"

I glare. _"Yes."_

"Can you describe it?"

A minute passes while I stare down at my hands. "It's . . . sort of private."

Dr. Aurelius studies my face and makes a note. "What was the last thing you recall before the episode started?"

"For fuck's sake," I mutter, running a hand through my hair. "Can I just have my stuff back already? I wasn't trying to hurt myself."

Ignoring me, he starts to write.

"Why won't you believe me?" I demand, turning the tables back on him. "This last week hasn't exactly been much of a picnic with all the _shit_ you're making me wade through in sessions--the nightmares, the flashbacks--"

Finally he sighs and lowers the clipboard. “Peeta, calm down.”

I glare. "Why won't you give me back my--"

"Because you have purposefully reopened the scar on your hand too many times in front of me and the nursing staff. And because you're being very evasive about what happened this morning."

Frowning, I start to pick at the bandage out of habit before quickly stopping. "So how am I supposed to sketch things for our sessions?"

Dr. Aurelius begins writing. "I see no problem with you using your materials under supervision during your recreation time.”

My lip curls. An hour a day. Two at most. And always in front of _Decima_. "That's not fair."

He looks up from his notes. "Then you’re going to have to stop lying to me."

Jaw tightening, I stare out the window for a minute and slowly draw a breath, heat creeping up my neck.

It’s almost as bad as the time my father sat me down with Rye one evening after closing for a _talk_ we knew was at our mother’s insistence, one which eventually turned into half an hour of mumbled apologies and awkward silences where almost no useful information was imparted other than a warning, conveyed in our usual language of gestures and nervous glances towards the stairs, that she would beat the living shit out of us boys and toss our belongings in the alley if we ever knocked a girl up, something it wasn’t exactly hard to guess. _Almost_.

"I had a dream about Katniss. And then, um,” unable to look at him, I pick at the bandage again, "I went in there to . . . uh, you know . . . jerk off. And that’s when I had the flashback."

There's a few seconds of silence and then Dr. Aurelius tilts his head. "Has that triggered an episode before?"

His tone is clinical, entirely unfazed. Ears burning, I cough and fiddle with the edge of the sheet. "Um, not . . . exactly."

He frowns. "I don’t follow. Has it or hasn't it?"

I exhale.

“No. I guess not.”

He waits for me to go on, but I refuse to elaborate. “Then what did you mean by _‘not exactly’_?”

Fidgeting in place, I mess with the water cup. “I haven’t really, uh . . . been able to. For a while.”

Dr. Aurelius leans forward, brow furrowed. “For how long?”

I shrug. “I think maybe they did something to me. Back in Thirteen.”

It all just sort of tumbles out after that. The experiments. The shock treatments. Being sedated so heavily I sometimes couldn’t remember my own name. First by the doctors in Thirteen and later in the burn unit here in the Capitol. The disorientation of waking up among yet another set of strangers, Katniss and Haymitch once again nowhere to be found, discovering an entire month had passed since the bombs exploded outside the president’s mansion, that I’d been placed in an induced coma to give my burns a chance to heal without the danger I’d shred my fragile new synthetic skin during the course of a flashback and have to start the process all over again.

I’m too uneasy to put into words my initial distrust of the new team of Capitol doctors I’d been assigned, half a dozen of them in their perfect white coats, including him, or the anger, despair, and fear upon discovering something _still_ wasn’t right, the dread that whatever they’d done in Thirteen might be permanent, but Dr. Aurelius seems to get it all the same. He nods along without interrupting and writes everything down.

“Were you able to ejaculate normally this morning?”

Face warming, I pick at my fingernails and mumble, "Yes."

"And this was the first time you've been able to do so since your rescue?"

I sigh. _“Yes.”_

He pauses and glances up. “Would you feel more comfortable going over this with Dr. Lucius?”

Still staring at the wall, I grunt and shake my head. It’s not a conversation I want to have with anyone, and Dr. Lucius is a dick even on his best days.

Dr. Aurelius gives me a minute and then clears his throat. “When was the first time you recall having difficulty?”

“In Thirteen,” I mumble, not looking at him.

“Were you able to masturbate?”

Blowing out a breath, I run both hands through my hair. “No, I . . . no.”

“Not at all?”

_“No.”_

“Did you try to?”

I lower my head. “What fucking difference does it make?”

He’s silent for a few seconds. “Because it’s important we determine exactly--”

“I just didn’t,” I mutter sharply. “All right? Let’s move on.”

He makes a note, but doesn’t say anything else, and I’m thinking about punching a hole through the wall when I hear the pen click.

“You’re certain it started in Thirteen?”

 _For fuck’s sake_. Having closed my eyes, I open them, all but snarling the answer. _“Yes.”_

He waits a moment. "And what about before that?"

Suddenly wary, I glance up. "What, you mean like--?"

Heat flushes my face for half a second before I quickly look away. Dr. Aurelius tilts his head to one side, voice quiet. "There's no shame in it, Peeta--"

I cut him off with a glare. But in the silence that follows, I’m unable to name the hazy images that form as memory or hallucination, _real or not real_.

Crouching, huddled alone in a corner. Pain throbbing in every inch of my body. Hunger so raw I can't think of anything else. Screams from the adjoining cells that go on for hours, never allowing more than minutes of sleep. My hand jerking desperately in the front of my pants. The motions bringing nothing that could fairly be called _pleasure_. The rhythm of it providing something that wasn’t quite comfort, and not nearly lasting enough to be called reassurance, release little more than a few seconds of distraction from pain.

The pressure of a boot smashing between my shoulder blades, pinning me in place with my cheek scraping the concrete floor. One of them drawing the butt of their club up between my legs as I thrash helplessly in protest, hands bound, unable to knock them away.

"Peeta?"

I blink, not saying anything for a minute. "Do you think it's fixable . . . whatever they did?"

Dr. Aurelius looks up. "We'll need to run tests, of course, but if you were able to achieve orgasm normally this morning, it may suggest nothing permanent was actually done at all."

Frowning, I stretch a stiff place on my wrist. "Then why couldn't I, uh. . ."

He flips back another page in my file. "Without testing I can't give you a definitive answer, but in someone your age who is of otherwise reasonably sound health, I would first review the list of medications you were on."

I chew on the information for a minute, thinking back. "They could have caused that?"

“Yes, certainly.”

I slowly nod. “Which ones?”

"Opiate analgesics like morphling are a common culprit.” Seeing the face I make, he sighs. “Even if they hadn't experimented with such inappropriate doses in Thirteen during the initial stages of the reverse hijacking process, there's no way its use could've been entirely avoided later. Not given the severity of your burns."

I absorb this in silence. "What else?"

Dr. Aurelius reads over my chart. "A blood pressure medication you were on for the first seven weeks while the venom levels were still high enough to cause strain on your heart."

I wait. “Is that it?”

He pauses. “And then we should also double-check which of the anti-depressants--”

"You've _got_ to be fucking kidding me.” Letting out a sharp bark of laughter, I shake my head. “ _No_. No way."

Dr. Aurelius pushes his glasses up and pinches the bridge of his nose, for once looking visibly impatient with me. "Peeta--"

"Forget it," I snap.

It's not our first go around on this. He knows I tossed all the psychiatric meds they had me on in Thirteen right after leaving for the Capitol, and the fact that he put me back on them intravenously while I was lying unconscious in the burn unit after consulting my newly arrived charts laid the groundwork for one of our first fights.

"They're not all the same and they don't all cause side effects," he counters. "You may find the right one to be very beneficial in helping stabilize your moods."

Glaring at him, I cross my arms. "Yeah, well. I hated the way they made me feel."

He nods. "And if you recall, as soon as you objected--"

I snort at the delicacy of the word, remembering every foul name I'd screamed at him while tied down in restraints, but Dr. Aurelius continues as if he hadn't been interrupted.

"--we came up with a plan together to titrate you off the ones we could as soon as it was medically safe to do so."

Not looking at him, I grunt, but it's hard, even now, after two months and countless other horrors, not to wonder if that had anything to do with his death. Not to see Dr. Aurelius’ frown when I admitted having purposefully stopped, asking if the physicians from Thirteen had warned me of the dangers, why it was necessary with these types of pills to slowly reduce the dosage rather than stop all at once. Not to recall my cold reply that I guessed we were even seeing as they'd never bothered consulting _me_ before sticking the needles in my arm in the first place.

But once he was gone, guilt filled every dark, quiet corner of the burn ward. And with it, a beast who wore my expression, crazed and monstrous, as I first tried to kill Katniss and then threw Mitchell into the pod, ending his life.

_Mood swings. Increased frequency of episodes. Suicidal thoughts—_

"Peeta?"

Squinting my eyes shut, I scrub a hand over my face. "What?"

Dr. Aurelius peers at me more closely. "Tell me what's going through your head right now."

I shrug and let a few seconds go by. "Is this going to happen every time?"

Having started to write, he pauses. "What are you asking, specifically?"

Heat crawls up my neck. "Am I going to have a flashback if I . . . you know . . .”

"Masturbate?" Ignoring the face I make, he nods. "Possibly, at first. In the long term, it's likely a response we can lessen. Your flashbacks are typically triggered by something we can identify--either a biochemical reaction due to increased stress or excitement or a psychological trigger that activates memories that are stored away in the back of your mind. It isn't random. We can work on conditioning your response through repeat exposure much like we have with various other triggers."

A beat passes. Dr. Aurelius shifts in the chair, frowning as he studies my face.

"Having said that, can you think of any connection?"

I swallow and rub the edge of the bandage. Because by now I pretty much know what he’s looking for. It's always the painfully little things that seem to trigger them. Innocuous, everyday items that writhe and distort in my mind until they twist a poisoned link between the present and the past. An apple. A thunderstorm. The soft tick of the clock in the physical therapy room. A deck of cards carelessly left out one day next to the chessboard in the recreation area, rendering me unable to speak for hours.

And this time is no different. Dripping water. The hard, cold surface of the floor. My hand tugging silently in the dark, Katniss' eyes wide and luminous as the moon glowing in a tropical night sky. Wanting this. Wanting _me_.

But that isn't all it brings back. Rage. The sickening feeling of lying there, lined up next to the others, powerless to stop them. The taunts, jeering and laughter when the cold tip of the club makes me jerk. Knowing what would come next. Once they inevitably tired of their little game of humiliation, of watching me struggle and kick at them blindly. Having no way to stop it and wanting to vomit from fear--

"Do we have to keep talking about this?" The question comes out sharper than I intend.

Dr. Aurelius waits a moment and answers softly. "We don't have to talk about anything you don't want to, Peeta."

Staring down at my hands for a minute, I ball them into fists. "So, can I have my sketchbook back now?"

"I'll have it sent down." Rising from the chair, he pauses to look at me. "But if something else comes up, no matter how insignificant, I want you to let me or one of the nurses know immediately. Are we agreed?"

"Fine," I mumble, avoiding his eyes.

But it doesn’t take long once he's gone for the voices to grow louder, taunting me from the safety of my memory like the most feckless of ghosts. And although I am no longer held down by shackles, ropes, or straps, she has somehow once again rendered me every bit as powerless either to fight back or dismiss her as the moment I lay dying in the first arena, my life once again hinging on the fickle mercies of Katniss Everdeen.

 

* * *

 

They return less than an hour after my lunch tray has been taken away. And wordlessly, I extend my arm for the nurse to start the IV.

For the first three days, I put up a fight. Kicked, bit, screamed and clawed until I had to be restrained or sedated so they could get the needle into my arm. Strapped down and forced into submission, watching what they insist are real images of _her_ while they carefully manipulate the dosage of morphling dripping into my arm, until I soften my stance towards all things _Katniss Everdeen_.

After a week of near-daily sessions, it still hasn't worked.

"So what are we watching today?" I ask, barely able to keep from sneering it. I’m not really expecting an answer. They don't bother with answers here unless there's some good reason for it. You're told what they want you to know.

But to my surprise, one comes. And it's _Haymitch_ who supplies it.

"Clip of some birds singing." There's a pause while I turn to glower in the direction of the one-way glass, and although he can see me and I can't see him, it's not hard to remember his expression from earlier that morning when he came by to see me and I yelled at him to get the fuck out. _Before_ he could get two steps in the door. "Wasn't ever aired, so we're sure the Capitol couldn't have used it."

I snort, but don't bother with a response he doesn't deserve. By that time the restraints are in place and everyone else has left the room. I try to sit up, frowning when I realize the straps have been put on too tightly. _Again._

"Hey--"

But something cold hits the crook of my arm just as I start to move, and the sentence comes out mumbled from the morphling. And as I slump against the pillows, the discomfort in my arms just sort of drifts away, carried off like the last wisps of a receding fog.

The tape starts.

I blink. She's standing in a grove of trees and for a minute I think it's another tape of the Games, but then I realize her clothes are all wrong.

All around her, mockingjays are singing. And an eerie chill travels up my spine when I realize _what_ they're singing--the same four-note melody she used to call the other mutts in the first arena and lead Marvel to Rue, cloyingly innocent, helping her to neatly eliminate two competitors in a single day. Taunting _me_ with it now.

I open my mouth, frowning again. They've given me less morphling this time. I'm almost sure of it. But right as my hands begin to shake in the restraints, there's another cool whisper inside my elbow, and everything grows soft and blurry.

And that's when the mutt begins to sing.

Quietly at first. Almost to herself, or maybe to the chorus of birds, who tilt their heads and blink beady little eyes, intrigued, in her direction.

_"Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree."_

I squint my eyes shut when my vision starts to swim. But it isn't my imagination. One by one they all fall silent. And as she starts in on the last verse, I realize where I've heard it before.

The room is deathly quiet after the clip stops. Maybe because they're almost as shocked I'm not screaming as I am. After a moment, the head doctor comes over the intercom.

"Peeta?"

I lick my lips, mouth fuzzy from the sedative. "I recognize it. The song."

"Take your time." The excitement in his voice is poorly disguised, and it's not hard to imagine the flurry of activity that must be going on behind the glass.

But I don't think about any of them for long. Because right then I can recall kneeling in the dirt, trying to pull weeds from our small garden in back, the plot of earth just across from the pig pen, using only one hand.

The sun is warm on my back, the fresh dirt cool under my knees as I carefully pluck offending sprigs of grass and clover as quickly as a single fist allows. No image comes of what it was this time. Fingerprints left on the display cases or a smudged bit of frosting on the cookies. Being too loud after supper when my father had to go straight to bed or not fast enough the following morning getting ready for school.

"He came by to trade at the bakery," I remember slowly. "And he was singing as he walked up the lane."

"Who?"

Even her _name_ tastes like ash in my mouth, and I wipe the syllables off my tongue like I'm trying to cleanse it of the last bitter traces of the firebombs that destroyed Twelve. "Mr. Everdeen."

There's silence for a minute.

"When was this?"

I frown, closing my eyes. But as I stop weeding to study the tall, dark-haired man making his way up to the bakery, Bannock edges through the back door to take a bucket of scraps out to the pig, an angry dark red mark easily visible on one cheek.

"I must have been . . . maybe six. Or seven."

Another odd pause follows.

"Long ways back." It's Haymitch again. And I don't miss that out of all the questions they've grilled me with over the course of a week, it's only the second time he's spoken.

_They don't believe you._

Swallowing, I turn to face the one-way glass. "I was listening to see if the birds stopped singing."

It’s impossible to hear anything in that room. There could be one person on the other side of the glass or twenty. Whispering to give me more morphling via the auto-injector or shouting for the guards. It’s only when I hear the quiet hush in Plutarch Heavensbee’s tone that I know I finally have their attention.

"And did they?"

My father comes to the door with a loaf of day-old sourdough and a bag of cinnamon buns just as Bannock is slipping back through with the empty pail. Smiling, he reaches down with a large, gentle hand to ruffle his hair. Squirrels are exchanged for bread.

And as Mr. Everdeen tucks the wrapped loaf and paper sack into his game bag and starts down the alley, he spots me kneeling in the garden, something in his eyes clouding when they shift to the arm I am obviously favoring. And that's when I know he didn't miss the bruise on Bannock's cheek. No more than my father did. He flashes me a kind smile, puts his hands in his pockets and hurries off towards home.

And I don't answer. Any of them.

 

* * *

 

"Peeta?"

Flinching, I turn from the window. Dr. Aurelius shifts his clipboard to the other hand, studying me for a minute. I frown, about to ask why he hadn’t knocked. But then I remember. This is _him_.

I blink and clear my throat. _"What?"_

His brow furrows, and I’m struck by the sudden suspicion it isn’t the first time he's said my name.

"How are you feeling?"

Looking away, I shrug. He pulls the chair around and we sit in silence while I debate asking him what the fuck I did this time, two unscheduled visits in one day a lot even for someone as screwed up as me.

"They said you didn't eat much at lunch."

I snort. "Is that why you're here?"

He glances up from his clipboard and raises an eyebrow. "It's our usual session time."

Frowning, I turn automatically to the wall panel before realizing if he’s telling the truth, it would be switched off so I can't badger him with questions about Katniss. "I thought since you came by this morning we wouldn't meet again tod--"

"Peeta,” he interrupts quietly.

I don't look up at him, picking at the bandage on my hand instead.

He waits a minute. "How are you really feeling?"

I shrug again. "I don't know." A beat passes. "Maybe not so great."

It’s the understatement of the century. Dr. Aurelius waits, and when I don't go on, gestures to my sketchbook. "Have you tried drawing anything this afternoon?"

"No," I mumble, scuffing my toe over a mark on the floor.

He cocks his head to the side. “Earlier you seemed eager to get your sketchbook back.”

I exhale, finally shrugging in response.

"Did something change?"

When I don’t answer, Dr. Aurelius studies me for a long moment and closes his notes. "Why don’t we take a walk?”

I grunt, not exactly excited about the idea. “That’s allowed?”

"Of course."

He ignores the face I make. And after a minute, I roll my eyes and reluctantly slip on my shoes.

We stop off at the front desk so he can sign me out and make note of where we're going, on the off chance I have another episode and destroy an entire glossy white wing of their hospital. I smile blandly at the nurse who rises from behind the desk to follow at a discreet distance with the sedatives, as is protocol any time I leave my room, halfway tempted to make a snide remark about their rules if I wasn’t sure no one but me would laugh.

"Where are we going?"

“Just around the floor.” Dr. Aurelius glances over. “Sometimes a change of scenery can be helpful.”

I shove both hands in my pockets and don’t say anything. Physical therapy is an hour a day, sometimes more. Then there are the trips to the burn unit and appointments with various specialists about my leg or the compression injuries they’re still trying to resolve in my ankle and wrists. And as long as I haven’t fucked up and gotten put on restriction, I get supervised recreation time every morning and afternoon. But other than that, I spend most of my time in my room.

We leave the high security part of the floor and pass by the elevators.

"Decima mentioned you seemed interested in the books.”

I jam my hands deeper into my pockets, jaw tightening automatically at the mention of her name. “Not really.”

“You're welcome to borrow them, if you'd ever like to read back in your room."

"I don't read much." We cross the hallway and start down a corridor I’m less familiar with.

“The offer stands, all the same.”

I shake my head, annoyed he won’t give it up. "Yeah, well. In school, the books were mostly about coal."

“That doesn’t sound very inspiring.”

I don’t bother replying and the silence stretches out. And the longer it does, the more my mind threatens to drift back to _that_. Blowing out a breath, I rub my face.

“So, uh . . . what do people usually write about here?"

Dr. Aurelius smiles in a sad sort of way before answering.

"All sorts of things."

Looking down, I start to say something else when a door opens just down the hall and to the right of us. I vaguely recognize the pale girl with the watery blue eyes who emerges with a cart of dirty linens as one who's brought my meal tray before, but only a few times.

She glances warily at me, but acknowledges Dr. Aurelius, hands and fingers moving swiftly through a series of shapes much too fast to make out. He smiles as we pass, signing something quickly to her in return.

I wait to ask him about it until we’ve gone back by the elevators and are standing in a hallway lined on both sides with dark wooden doors. Each has a name inscribed beside it on a gleaming brass plate, including his.

 _Dr. Aurelius Finch, M.D_.

"So how long did that take you to learn?"

He shifts the clipboard to the other arm to unlock the door. "Fluently? Many years."

Inside, there's a neat arrangement of chairs facing a small couch, plus a large wooden desk in one corner. The bookcases that span the entire length of one wall don't particularly surprise me, nor draw my interest. But the artwork does. Frowning, I wander closer to the nearest painting. It's dark. Abstract. Filled with violent swirls of color and haunting shadowy figures. Wide gaping maws take the place of mouths, each locked in an eternally silent scream.

I stare at it, somehow knowing the answer even before I ask. "Are they supposed to be Avoxes?"

"Yes," he says quietly.

"Was the artist one?"

He folds his hands, voice momentarily distant. "No. Her . . . brother was made into one. And understandably, it influenced a great deal of her work, particularly in the last few years of her life."

Nodding, I glance over the others. Similar in composition. Heavy, thick brushstrokes. All very dark.

"You knew her?"

"Yes. I did." He pauses, briefly seeming to contemplate saying something more. Appearing to decide against it, he clears his throat and checks something in his notes. "Earlier when I asked how you were feeling, you said, _'I don't know,'_ and, _'Maybe not so great.'"_

Not meeting his eyes, I pick at the bandage on my hand. "I remember."

Dr. Aurelius steeples his fingers, studying me thoughtfully. "Is it the first one or the second?"

I let out a breath, annoyed and tempted to tell him _both_. “I don’t know.” There’s a long pause, but eventually I give in. "The second."

He waits. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Examining the edge of the desk, I slouch further.

“Not especially.”

"Would you rather we talked about Thirteen?"

I scoff and roll my eyes. "No."

Ignoring me, he flips back a page in his notes. "We never finished our conversation yesterday--"

_"No."_

"--regarding their use of restraints."

Leaning forward, I rake a hand through my hair. "I don't want to talk about Thirteen."

Dr. Aurelius raises an eyebrow.

“A week ago, you said you did.”

"Well, I don't anymore."

“Why?”

I glower at him.

"What changed?" he prods gently.

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

He waits while I pull at a thread at the end of the little gauze pad, the room deafeningly loud.

Finally I swallow, not looking up. “I’ve been . . . remembering things.”

“From your time in Thirteen or something else?”

I study my fingernails.

“The only way this starts to get better is to talk about it."

Annoyed, I scrub a hand through my hair. "Yeah, well. I’m trying."

"Are you?" he counters. "Any time I bring up a topic you don't want to discuss, you start to fidget, claim you can't remember what happened, and then try to distract me with questions about Katniss."

I lean back in the chair, refusing to look up at him. "You think you've got me all figured out, huh?”

Dr. Aurelius inclines his head.

"I think there is a part of you so desperate to avoid these feelings resurfacing, it compels you to do and say almost anything in order to avoid them." Pausing for a moment to let that sink in, he continues in a quieter voice. "And I have to wonder if that’s really a new pattern at all.”

I snort. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“That I think you were forced to become a very skilled liar from a very young age.”

Rolling my eyes, I mess with the bandage again, tempted to tell him he was full of shit.

Studying me for a minute, he leans forward. “Have you been able to remember any more of your conversation with Katniss from the train?”

Surprised at the question, I lift my head, meeting his eyes and just as quickly looking away.

"No," I finally answer. “What’s your point?”

"That it would surprise me if you even _tried_ to ask Katniss for comfort that night. That you were withholding things back then, too, from her, and from your family.” He pauses, slowly nodding. “That just like what you later told her on the beach in the second arena, some part of you sees yourself as not worth it. Not worth being the one to survive. Not worth being rescued. And not worth saving now."

_No one really needs me._

I stare out the window and refuse to respond.

Dr. Aurelius folds his arms. "I think you’ve been feeling a great deal of pain and anger all along. Not only for what happened to you in Thirteen and the Capitol, but about the fact that you haven't been listened to for far longer than that."

Blinking when my eyes begin to sting, I look down.

"Loss of control is the primary stressor in torture,” he continues gently. “The sense of helplessness that comes when overpowered by an enemy you know you have no hope of fighting off. And its effects can be that much more profound when the person or group carrying out the abuse is entrusted with the responsibility of defending the victim."

I finally dig in the box on the table behind me for a tissue. "Meaning?"

Dr. Aurelius clears his throat. "Meaning part of the reason this wounds so deeply is because it was a crime perpetrated by the very people you had a legal and moral right to expect to protect you. And after they'd failed you, even your so-called rescuers turned out to have ulterior motives."

"Yeah, well." Shaking my head, I ball the tissue into a clump. "No offense or anything, but no one expects much from the Capitol."

"That’s sadly understandable." He steeples his fingers. "They control both the courts and the Peacekeepers, which has the effect of eliminating hope of rescue, or of justice ever being carried out." He pauses, eyes flicking to mine in a way that instantly puts me on edge. "And it goes without saying that your time in the Capitol wasn't the first where you'd been treated cruelly by someone who was supposed to protect you."

I mess with the tissue, not looking at him.

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“I know you don’t. But it's all connected. Your time in District 13 to your torture. Your feelings of desire for Katniss to the confusion and anger that once accompanied it. And all of it to what happened in your earliest years. It must be untangled, one painful strand at a time. There is no quick and easy fix.”

I keep my eyes averted, a question slowly forming, the one he'd refused to answer the day before.

"What really happened to the others?"

Dr. Aurelius doesn't immediately respond.

"Their outcomes are . . . irrelevant to yours. There weren’t many attempted rehabilitations simply because hijacking was never a torture technique commonly employed, even by a regime as brutal as Snow’s."

I think on that for a minute.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why didn’t they use it more?”

He considers the question. “It’s very difficult to carry out effectively, and because of the area of the brain the venom targets, the results are extremely inconsistent.”

I nod, tracing the bite mark on the back of my hand.

 _Their outcomes are irrelevant to yours_.

And suddenly there’s a feeling in the pit of my stomach, silent and insidious as the stare of dozens of orange-furred monkey mutts in a dark, ticking jungle. A truth I’d refused to see from the start. The unreasonable worry I'd hurt myself with the pencils. Strict temperature controls in the shower. The wound on my hand. My refusal to eat. Recent changes in my medication. The image that formed when you stepped far enough back from the canvas.

"Did you work with any of them?" I finally ask.

For a minute he seems to debate answering.

"No.”

I nod silently, the next question harder to form because by now I’ve pretty much guessed the answer.

"The others.” I pause. “They’re dead?"

Staring back at me for a long moment, he nods. "Yes."

I swallow. "All of them?"

"Yes."

Blowing out a long breath, I slump in the chair and stare out his window, not needing to ask _how_.

Dr. Aurelius leans forward. "Do you want to know why I believe you will be different, why I firmly believe _you_ out of all of them will be the first to make a successful recovery?"

I shrug, knowing he’s just going to tell me anyway.

"Because in the twenty years I've spent working with torture victims--"

"The Avoxes?" I interrupt, frowning.

"Yes, primarily Avoxes," he says gently. "The single most important factor when we looked at who recovered and who didn’t, why it was so critical we find a way to give them back a voice through signing, is that the victim be able to articulate what has happened to them and find support in a community of others who have survived similar ordeals."

I pick at my thumbnail. "I still don't get what that has to do with me."

But it isn’t quite true and we both know it, something he'd said the week before turning over annoyingly in the back of my mind. That it was no coincidence Snow chose methods of torture designed not only to brutalize, but to silence his victims. The Avoxes. Me. Katniss.

“I think you have an extraordinary strength of will.” Studying my face for a minute, he slowly nods. “Compassion. Determination. And a gift for speech. All of which allow you a good chance at a meaningful recovery.”

I grunt. “Even though none of the others made it?”

“Yes.” He hesitates, seeming to debate telling me something. “You’ve already made it twice as long as the longest case on record. And none of the others had access to the kind of resources we do here.”

“Where were they?”

He considers the question. “Do you really want to know or is this just going to result in more vivid material for your nightmares?”

I turn to stare out his window again, not saying anything for a minute. "Maybe it's like you said and I'm just a really good liar."

Dr. Aurelius leans forward, continuing in a quieter voice.

"I'm not talking about joking back and forth with Caesar Flickerman. And I don't believe the Peeta Mellark who generously offered up his winnings to the families of two fallen tributes in District Eleven _was_ lying. Nor was the one who took the time to describe every color in his paint box in painstaking detail for a dying woman from District Six the rest of Panem wrote off as nothing but a worthless morphling addict."

I swallow, messing with the cuff of my pants. "One of those I barely remember and the other I can't remember at all. I'm not--"

"You _are_ that Peeta Mellark," he counters patiently, the argument one we've had no shortage of times.

I merely shrug. And after a minute, he tilts his head. "What's really bothering you?"

Not answering, I turn to study another of his paintings, a small lone figure crouched at the center of a dark maelstrom.

"You haven't asked me where Katniss is once today."

He says it softly. As if he already knows. Snorting, I lean back in the chair.

"Why, were you finally going to tell me?"

He doesn't answer.

I roll my eyes, foot tapping in annoyance. "I don't care where she is."

Raising an eyebrow, he looks up from his notes.

"That's an interesting development, one I don’t believe we’ve heard before. Even when you were unconscious in the burn ward, the nurses reported you asked for her in your sleep."

I fold my arms. "It's not like she ever gave a fuck about me."

He watches me intently for a minute. "After your first Games, you mean?"

I bark out a laugh. "After. Before. During . . . take your pick." Dr. Aurelius says nothing. "You know she left me there for . . . I can't even remember how many days it was . . . and I was so fucking scared every time the sun would start to go down and I was trapped there all alone in the riverbank. Unable to move. Too weak to get myself out of the mud, much less fight off Cato if he decided to show up and finish me off."

At this I fall silent. Dr. Aurelius lifts his head.

"You sound angry with her."

The words curl around my tongue as I slowly taste them, lip twisting into a sneer.

"She abandoned me for _Rue_. Some dumb kid she’d never even met. After everything I did to keep her safe. She left me lying there, night after night after _fucking_ night. Alone. Thinking she wasn't ever going to come. While they beat me. _Starved_ me. And then they--"

I'm breathing so hard my chest hurts. So hard it feels like I have a hovercraft sitting on top of my lungs.

"What did they do, Peeta?"

His voice sounds a thousand miles away.

An Avox screaming somewhere off to the side, quickly followed by the sound of a gunshot. The sickening whimpers that followed. The wish that after everything else I'd managed to survive at my mother’s hand, I might be strong enough to survive _this_. Humiliation and nausea coming in waves as I wait with my head down and hands bound, wanting and dreading for them to just get whatever they were going to do over with. Five minutes becoming ten, then fifteen, then twenty. Sick, furious anger at the thought of where Katniss and Haymitch were at that very moment. Undoubtedly someplace warm. Protected. _Safe_.

But most of all the sense of helplessness as I kneel, bound, blindfolded and vulnerable, beaten any time my tiring muscles cause me to twitch out of position. Taunted with the promise Katniss wouldn't want me anymore after they were finished. A stray poke of the tip of the club all it takes for me to jerk frantically forward and piss myself in fear, they erupt in gales of laughter, the boot connecting with my groin seconds later.

In the end, I'm not certain how much I say out loud. But it's enough. Dr. Aurelius allows me to wipe my face and fiddle with the tissue for a minute before asking the next question, one I kind of knew was coming.

"Did anything else happen?"

I keep my eyes on the tissue. "Well, they beat the shit out of me, if that's what you mean."

The silence that follows makes me want to crawl out of my skin.

"I'm sorry, but it isn’t."

Rolling the tissue back and forth in my palm, I take a breath.

"I don't . . . remember. If they came back later and went through with it. Or if it was just another of their ways to humiliate me, like when they'd take my leg and force me to crawl up and down the hallway, or piss in my food." I hesitate. "If anything else did happen, I'm not sure I _want_ to remember."

"Nevertheless, I want you to be prepared for the possibility more may come back." He waits until I reluctantly nod. "Peeta?"

I fidget for a minute and glance up.

"Nothing that happened was your fault. In any way." He waits while I scrub the tissue past my nose. "And I sincerely doubt Katniss would see it any differently."

I pick at the bandage again. "I dunno. She, uh," I rub my eyes, "didn't ever really want me to begin with. You know?"

Dr. Aurelius smiles just slightly. "If you really believe that, then you haven't been watching the same tapes I have."

I don't respond, not even to shrug it off, but for the first time since waking up on the bathroom floor, something vaguely reassuring unfurls in my chest, soft and breakable as the petals of an apple blossom.

"How are you doing?"

"I just want to go back to my room," I answer truthfully. "Is that okay?"

"That’s fine." He nods. “But I’m going to come check on you again later today once you’ve had some time to process this.”

I make a face, but don’t say anything.

"I also want you to let me put you back on an anti-depressant for the time being." Seeing my frown, he holds up a hand. "We'll work together to find one you tolerate well that doesn't cause unwanted side effects. But things are going to be hard while we go through some of these more difficult topics, and there's no reason to make them more stressful than they need to be."

I look away.

"If I don't like them, you'll let me stop?"

He sighs and runs a hand over his beard. "I'll ask that you give the medication a fair chance to work, once we find one that's acceptable, but after that, so long as your health is not at risk, yes."

I exhale, unsure I like his answer. But in the long list of people who have lied to me over the past two years, Katniss and Haymitch coming out close to the top, he's one of the few I almost trust to mean what he says. _Almost_.

And so after a minute, I meet his eyes across the desk and slowly nod.

"All right."

 

* * *

 

We sit out on the porch swing after dinner, rocking lazily from heel to toe, watching the rain fall. It's only just growing dark. Light glows soft and warm from the lamp in the window, illuminating Katniss' pensive expression as she stares out at the deepening shadows, and not for the first time that night, I wish I knew what she was thinking.

"You okay?" I ask lightly, angling the arm hooked over the back of the seat so my finger brushes her shoulder.

She gives a faint nod, but offers nothing else.

A gust of wind blows, scattering a cool mist against our cheeks that smells of fresh earth and summer and the ever-present taste of ash, still lingering as a silent reminder in every breath we take even so many months after the bombing, and seeming to cause Katniss' arms to draw tight around her middle as her face clouds. I frown, peering over at her in concern. But when I catch her eye, she quickly swallows and straightens.

I turn back to watch droplets pattering softly on the muddy path, wondering if midsummer storms ever feel like the cave to her, the veil of rain drawing a private curtain in the background while we huddle close, cozy and dry, shrouded from the rest of the world. Or if she's still quietly on edge. Waiting for lightning to strike the tree at the center of some unseen arena and separate us again the moment she dares close her eyes.

A flash of muddied gold darts up, Buttercup abandoning his hiding place underneath the porch in order to mew and wind himself pitifully around my legs.

Glancing down, Katniss scoffs. "I told you so."

I roll my eyes.

Buttercup pauses in his bid for attention to swish his tail, eye us both speculatively, and leap up onto the porch swing. I chuckle and lift a hand for him to arch up under, scratching the back of his ears when he starts to purr.

"Yeah, we'll see who's your favorite in the morning when I'm eating all my bacon."

Katniss snorts. Watching Buttercup make a few more passes back and forth along my side of the swing before I deposit him unceremoniously on the porch, she shakes her head, fingers knotting together nervously as she turns to stare at her hands.

I start to ask if she's okay. _Again_. Even though it's pretty obvious by now something is off. But when she frowns and starts to chew her thumbnail, the tension between us grows uncomfortable enough that bringing it up seems like about the worst idea in the world.

Sighing, I run a hand through my hair.

"I'm sorry."

Katniss glances over, brow furrowing just a little, and I hastily clarify.

"For yesterday," pausing, I stare out at the falling rain, "when we first woke up."

"Oh."

It's maybe the tenth word she's said since we came out here. Biting her bottom lip, she plays with the tail of her shirt, unable to meet my eye. I take a breath.

"We needed to talk about it," I say in a low voice, shame warming my cheeks at the memory. "But not . . . like that."

She still doesn't answer. But after a minute, she silently nods. I don't protest when she reaches over to lace her fingers with mine, watching her mouth open and shut a handful of times until finally the words force their way out.

"We're going to have bad days."

She says it softly, hand tightening around mine, the words echoing what I've whispered against her forehead on the countless mornings I have to carry her from the bed, feed her, drag her to the shower and lay out her clothes like she was a stubborn child.

I glance over at the brush of fingertips against the back of my wrist, seeing Katniss tentatively trace the edge of a section of newly regrown skin that was grafted on where the burns were too severe, the artificial tissue a soft, pale pink still too fragile for direct exposure to the sun. She swallows, expression darkening.

"Before you came back," she hesitates, toying with my fingers for a few seconds, "there weren't any good days."

I stare into her face. Her eyes lift shyly to mine as our thumbs skitter back and forth nervously across the other's hand. And just as quickly, we both look down.

"Can I ask you something?" Katniss says after a minute.

I nod. She licks her lips, fidgeting a little before taking an obviously reluctant breath.

"I, um . . . called Johanna this afternoon," Katniss falters, biting her lip again, "to let her know about Annie." She pokes the toe of her boot at an old knot in the wooden porch railing. "She said to tell you to call her tomorrow. That it had been a few weeks."

I don't miss her slight shift in tone. Rubbing my thumb softly over hers, I wait until I'm sure the words won't have an edge to them.

"We talk."

Her eyes widen, then immediately narrow. Frowning, she pulls her hand away and pushes her hair behind one ear, staring at the ground.

I sigh, but make an effort to keep my voice soft. "I've told you that before."

Katniss shrugs and picks at a loose thread on her pants. "I guess I didn't realize you talked so . . . often."

Leaning back, I roll my eyes. "Well, if she's having to call _you_ to get messages through to _me_ , obviously it's not all that often, is it?"

She scowls. We sit in annoyed silence and watch the rain, the stiff set of her jaw growing increasingly harder to ignore until finally she lets out a huff.

"So how often _is_ it?"

"I don't know." I push the swing back and forth for a minute. "Once a month? Sometimes twice?"

She scoffs.

"That's more than _I_ talk to her."

"Well, I'm sorry," I snap, and we fall silent again.

I fold my arms and glare out at the night while Katniss silently seethes. Her shoulders hunch, and I notice out of the corner of my eye that she's chewing her thumbnail again.

"What do you talk to her about?"

Exhaling, I wait a long moment before answering.

"Just . . . stuff."

She lets out a huff. "Stuff you can't talk about with me?"

Too long passes and I watch her face fall, realization written in the pained lines on her forehead as she picks at her fingernails. I swallow, measuring the word carefully.

"Sometimes."

Half a dozen emotions flare in her eyes. Hurt. Anger. The poisonous fire of jealousy, which quickly cools to forced indifference. And finally, _guilt_.

"About the Capitol?"

I draw a reluctant breath.

"Yes."

Katniss nods and stares down at her hands, waiting for me to continue.

"Sometimes I just need to talk to someone who understands." I shrug. "Someone who was there. Who I can talk to without . . . having to explain."

Her face clouds. Blowing the hair out of her eyes, she grips the edge of the swing hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

"You told me once you had a list of words you use to try to figure me out." She shakes her head. "Lately _I_ need one to tell what _you're_ thinking."

I study her profile. "How do you mean?"

Her cheeks redden. "About me." Clearly reluctant, she fidgets in place. "Us."

Silent for a moment, I take a careful breath. "We never really used to talk before. Real or not real?"

It's obvious she doesn't like the question, not that I expected she would. But it's one I've slowly come to realize we can't keep ignoring. Not if we want things to be different this time.

"Not real,” she grits out, jaw tight and angry. "We talked, even though you've always been better with words.” Pausing, she snorts. “Except now, when you don’t seem to want to talk to me at all."

I let the statement turn over silently in my head, watching her stare, forlorn, out at the rainy night. She frowns a little, twice starting to speak and stopping before mumbling the next sentence in a rush.

"So _do_ you like Johanna?"

I roll my eyes. "Not like _that_."

She scowls when she catches the hint of a smirk playing at my lips, and turns to glare out at the night, arms crossed angrily. But when I eventually slide my arm across the back of the seat and lightly ghost fingertips from her shoulder to her elbow in a way I know she particularly likes whenever we're lying in bed in the mornings, she doesn't scoot away.

"Will you tell _me_ something?" I ask a few minutes later, after the tension has bled from her shoulders and she's leaning into my side.

There's a moment of hesitation.

"What?" she asks warily, and I have to fight the urge to smile at the expression that follows, as if she's not quite sure whether the question itself justifies a scowl.

Instead, I reach up to smooth a piece of hair behind her ear. "When did Finnick give you the rope?" She swallows and my hand stills. "You don't have to tell me if it's private."

But she shakes her head, shoulders hunching a little.

"The night of your last interview, when you warned us the bombs were going to fall, just before the cameras went black, I saw you--"

She doesn't finish and doesn't have to. Dr. Aurelius and I have watched all the propo tapes together and gone over them in sessions until I'm as desensitized to the images as he thinks I'm probably going to get, knowing one day they'll be a part of every history lesson taught in Panem.

"Everyone else eventually fell asleep." Katniss stiffens, eyes distant. "I . . . kept picturing what they were doing to you."

Her hand edges closer to mine, thumb darting nervously along a scar on my index finger once they're clasped.

"If it makes you feel better, I have almost no memory of what happened that night."

She frowns. "But you remember other things . . ."

It isn't a question. I nod, watching her carefully.

"Dr. Aurelius thinks maybe one of the first blows caused a concussion or Snow was angry about what happened in the interview and authorized them to use more venom than they had before in order to speed up the hijacking." I shrug. "Up until that point, they'd avoided my face and hands so I could go on camera--"

She goes pale as freshly fallen snow, and I don’t tell her any more, only reach over after a moment to lightly trace the back of her wrist.

"We protect each other, right?" I say softly. Katniss silently nods, eyes locked on mine. "It isn't about wanting to confide in Jo. I don't like hurting you."

Her expression softens and she turns to stare at our linked hands.

"That night, Finnick was the only one who understood why I couldn't go to sleep. You know, because of Annie. I stayed up with Buttercup practicing knots the rest of the night."

I laugh, gently squeezing her arm. "So you admit he _is_ good for something, then?"

Scowling, she gives me a dark look. "I think it's my turn to ask the next question."

"That's fair," I agree. "But maybe something lighter."

She snorts and tugs her hand back. "It's actually a follow-up to something we discussed earlier today."

Sighing, I remove the arm stretched across the back of the swing, able to guess where this was going.

"Uh-huh?"

"Melodie Taylor. And your definition of _not much further than that_ , since I answered all of _your_ questions yesterday."

I groan. "Is this really a good idea?" Katniss doesn't blink when I turn to face her. "Because knowing exactly when and where you were sucking face with Gale sure didn't make me feel any better."

She doesn't respond, and after a minute I go back to staring out at the rain.

"It was worse."

Frowning, I glance over.

"Worse than the arenas," she continues softly. "Than seeing the families on the Victory Tour. Than lizard mutts in the tunnels under the Capitol." Swallowing, she lifts her chin. "Knowing he was hurting you. Being powerless to stop it--"

I gather her in my arms just as tears begin to streak past the edge of her nose, the rest of it muffled against my shirt.

"--I don't care how much it hurts. I don't want us separated ever again."

"Okay," I whisper.

And right then, there's a part of me that finally gets it. That maybe she'd been too shocked to think of anything but surviving the first arena. That maybe she really _had_ set out to protect me in the second. But most importantly of all, that in the weeks we were separated, when my life was measured in hours and sometimes minutes, I'd never truly been abandoned. Not by everyone. That Katniss Everdeen had been quietly dying alongside me every second of every day.

"So . . ."

I peer down at her and trace a strand of hair away from her cheek, rolling my eyes when I realize what she's asking.

"What exactly do you want to know?"

Still tucked under my arm, she squirms a little, the lingering pinkness in her cheeks not entirely from the tears.

"Was it . . . like us?" she finally asks. "On the beach?"

At this, the blush creeps steadily down her neck, obvious even in the faint light. Smiling softly, I tip her chin up and brush the tears away with the pad of my thumb.

"No. Nothing like that."

And at this, I almost see a smile.

Katniss settles her head against my shoulder, one thin arm sneaking its way around me as she chews her thumbnail. I'm about to gently tug it from her mouth before she can make it bleed again when her voice causes me to glance down.

"There was one kiss."

"Wh--"

Her eyes stay trained on her lap. "In the first arena. After I brought back the medicine from the feast." She pauses for a long time. "You said you would have to fill in the pieces. Do you--"

"I remember," I answer softly, barely breathing.

She swallows. "Right then . . . I wanted all the cameras to go away."

And it’s clear from the way her face immediately flushes when I say nothing in response that it isn't a lie, that _this_ is what she'd been quietly guarding every time I begged her to tell me what had been real. She licks her lips, eyes drifting to my mouth, and I realize then that she wants me to kiss her.

Desire unfurls, dark and longing, in my chest as I stare down at the wet surface of her mouth, faintly able to remember the sensation of it giving slightly under mine. Of her hand caressing soft and warm at the back of my neck on the beach. But it's followed almost immediately by a rush of fear. Uncertainty. Horror at the thought of what might happen if she were to accidentally twist her fingers shyly into my hair. Press her lips to my throat. Confusion, hunger . . . _longing_. All the things that are still Katniss Everdeen to me.

And for half a second, I’m flooded with guilt at the thought of hurting her, the temptation to push caution aside there and very real. But it’s painfully obvious from the way her arms are trembling that it's too soon for her, too. That tomorrow she might very well wake up sobbing despondently or too skittish to look anyone in the eye. Or I could be locked up in my house for days, angry at the world. That _unstable_ doesn't describe the half of it right now when it comes to us.

That there was too much between us still left unsaid, _this,_ what was slowly forming, in need of time and space to properly heal, and something I didn't want either of us to later regret. Something that couldn't be rushed, not this time, when we were both so fragile.

So instead, I lean forward and press my lips softly to her forehead. "Thank you for telling me."

Hurt flashes across her features. She lowers her eyes and nods a little stiffly, catching her lip between her teeth.

But not before I see it quiver.

 

* * *

 

Comments are like plant-book illustrations, courtesy of Peeta and his super-tangly eyelashes. Would love to hear what you thought :)


	5. Guard You from Every Harm

_“He seems to be everywhere today.”_

 

* * *

 

Topping the not unsubstantial list of reasons Haymitch Abernathy deserves nothing more from me other than a good punch in the face is the fact that it takes him ten fucking days after my rescue to find the balls to drop by my room.

Forgoing Thirteen’s normal procedure of announcing visitors at the door, as if to inform anyone new gawking at me from behind the glass there’s a good chance that within the hour I will have forgotten not only who I’ve been speaking to, but how to chew my own food, he slips into the room with the sort of wariness earned after managing against all odds to outlast forty-seven other tributes in a perverse arena designed to poison everything but the air he breathed. But it still feels pretty fucking unbelievable to see the way he's watching me considering _I'm_ the one strapped at four points to the bed.

He slowly comes closer. I draw one heaving breath and then another, hands splayed grotesquely, every muscle taut and shaking. Reaching the foot of my bed, he slides both hands into his pockets, and simply waits.

 _"Fuck . . . you,"_ I finally spit out, barely recognizing the whining sound that strains in my throat as I try to form words. "Fuck--"

Madder than a pack of wild dogs, I howl and fight against the restraints. He stands there, letting me hurl every name I can come up with at him without saying a word.

And when I eventually run out of things to call him, and scream at him to get out, he goes.

 

* * *

 

"Please?"

"Nope." Blowing stray crumbs of eraser residue off the parchment, I flex my wrist and pick up the pencil. "Almost done. You can see it then."

From her perch at the far end of the couch, Katniss makes a face, extending a socked toe to wriggle its way between two of my ribs. I roll my eyes and lean just out of her reach.

"You know, you're a lot prettier when you aren't scowling."

The toe pokes again, more insistently this time, and without looking up, I sneak a hand down to tickle the sole of her foot. She yelps in surprise.

Hiding a smile, I clear my throat. "So, how's it coming over there?"

She scoffs and sets her notes aside, wandering over to the kitchen table and the basket of cheese buns left over from dinner. "You show me yours, and I'll show you mine."

I laugh. "You already got to see the test sketch." Her back still to me, I follow her bare arms down to the slim curve of her waist. "You aren't going to save _any_ of those for breakfast?"

Selecting one, Katniss folds the towel across the remaining cheese buns and takes an enormous bite.

"Nope." She plops beside me on the couch. "Why?"

I snort, watching her eyes flutter shut in absolute bliss while she chews.

"Because the last time you ate this many right before bed, you were up half the night with a stomachache."

"Was not," she mumbles through the next mouthful, cheeks darkening when I raise an eyebrow in response. Sitting back a little sulkily on the sofa, she picks off a much smaller bite and pops it in her mouth. " _Fine_ , then. This is my last one."

Smiling, I flick her hair teasingly with the end of the pencil. "How am I doing with the recipe? Any closer?"

She nods, worrying her bottom lip, and in that silent tell, I know it's not quite true. I go back to drawing while she tries to come up with a good way to tell me I've fallen short yet again.

"I think it's the cheese," she says at last. "Rather than something you're doing with the bread. It's just . . . different."

"Hmm."

"They're still _good_ ," she hastily amends. " _Obviously_ , considering how many I've eaten. They're just not quite the same as before." Her face falls when she sees my expression. "I don't know. Maybe I'm the wrong person to ask. We both know I’m a terrible cook."

I roll my eyes. "No, you’re not.”

She snorts. “If you say so.”

Carefully smudging a line, I shrug. “Maybe you can’t make all the fancy dishes they serve in the Capitol, but the soup you made last night was great.”

Katniss picks at her nails. "Just about anyone can throw a bunch of stuff in a pot and call it soup. Even Haymitch."

"Well, I like the way you do it," I say absently, reaching for the eraser again.

"Really?" Her tone is dubious.

"Mm-hmm."

She falls silent and I continue to sketch. After a moment, she scoots closer to peer over my shoulder while I work, the herbal citrus of a soft lavender soap and warmth of her arm propped next to mine a tantalizing distraction.

"Which one?" The heat from her breath tickles past my ear, and I swallow before turning to face her.

"What?"

"The soups." Looking down, she fiddles with the edge of my sleeve for a few seconds. "Which do you like the best?"

"Oh." My cheeks heat when she catches me staring at her mouth, clear gray eyes flitting to mine. "Uh . . . I'm not sure I can pick a favorite. Maybe the creamy potato. Or vegetable. Or that broth one you made the other night with the onions."

Katniss nods thoughtfully, wiping the last bit of oil from the cheese buns on the hem of her shorts. And it's there, as her hair sways in a dark curtain past the edge of her cheek, that I catch the first shy trace of a smile.

Clearing my throat when the silence grows awkward, I gesture to the sheet of parchment between us. "I think this is finished, if you want to tell me if you approve."

She leans over into my space to examine it in better light. There were actual pictures of him, of course, one of which we'd carefully pasted at the top of the page, but none of this day, of a five-year-old Katniss with her hand tucked securely into his much larger one, hair plaited into two braids down her back as he smiles affectionately and walks her to school.

"Thank you, Peeta" she says after a moment, voice wavering just slightly.

“You’re welcome,” I answer softly, tucking an escaping wisp of hair behind her ear.

Cheeks pinking, she takes the lap desk from me and starts to copy her notes onto the page in a meticulous hand. I stretch my shoulder before casually draping an arm across the back of the sofa.

_\--go swimming like I used to on hot summer Sundays in the woods with my father. Those days were a special treat. We would leave early in the morning and hike--_

The tension palpable at first, it had taken a while for things to return to normal. But they eventually had, the shared project of the book cautiously drawing us into the same space, forcing conversations we might otherwise have continued to avoid.

_I don't even remember learning to swim, I was so young when he taught me. I just remember diving, turning somersaults, and paddling around. The muddy bottom of the lake beneath my toes. The smell of blossoms and greenery. Floating on my back, staring at the blue sky while the chatter of the woods was muted by the water._

I clear my throat and reach past her for a piece of scrap paper. "Which one next?"

We'd started with Rue, and mostly done the other tributes since then, deciding to tackle some of the shorter pages first. None of them, by any stretch of the imagination, _easy_ , the guilt in Katniss' eyes when she realized that between us, we didn't have six sentences to say about Thresh was palpable as the feeling of her fingers digging into my shoulders later that night. But after a few more weeks, she hesitantly said she was ready to make Finnick's page. Then Cinna’s. And after that, her father's.

"Um," she shrugs and chews the edge of her lip, clearly distracted, "you pick."

Forcing my gaze away from her mouth, I peer over to see what she’s writing.

_He'd bag the waterfowl that nested around the shore. I'd hunt for eggs in the grasses, and we'd both dig for katniss roots, the plant for which he named me, in the shallows. At night, when we got home, my mother would pretend not to recognize me because I was so clean. Then she'd cook up an amazing dinner of roasted duck and baked katniss tubers with gravy._

Finishing with the first section, she carefully lays the sheet of parchment on the table to give the ink a chance to dry. And when she sinks into the cushions, flexes her fingers and gingerly cracks the bones in her wrist, I reach over to take her hand in both of mine, massaging the stiffness from it under the light pressure of my thumbs. She lets out a little moan. I chuckle.

“Silly goose.”

Stealing her hand back with a scowl, she pokes my side, swatting at me and scooting away when I tickle her in response.

“Not fair.”

I guffaw. “How is it _possibly_ not fair? _You_ started it,” I remind her.

“You’re bigger than me.”

“Yeah, and that just makes it easier for those little fingers to get in ticklish spots.”

Katniss bites her lip, and it’s barely a second before she lunges for me again. Breathless when we finally part, she leans her head on my shoulder.

"Do you talk to Dr. Aurelius tomorrow, or Thursday?"

"Tomorrow." Raising an eyebrow, I tilt my head towards her just slightly. "Why?"

"What time?"

"Five."

Katniss hesitates briefly.

"Do you want to see it?" Lacing our fingers, she gestures to the page. "The lake?" When I don't answer immediately, she rushes ahead. "We can practice swimming some more. And . . . maybe you could sketch while I hunt--"

"Sounds fun," I interrupt, giving her hand a soft squeeze.

She squeezes back, thumb skittering nervously along mine. We fall into yet another awkward silence.

“So, um . . .”

Glancing at her, I nod towards the stairs.

“Are you, uh--?”

Cheeks reddening, she pushes her hair behind one ear. "I mean, we probably _should_ soon if . . . you know.”

I don’t quite meet her eye.

“We'll probably have to get up early to--"

"Yeah, definitely." Katniss clears her throat.

Giving her fingers a light tug, I pull her up after me. "C'mon."

She hooks her other thumb in her back pocket and follows me up the stairs, awkwardly clearing her throat once we reach her room.

"Um, you can go first . . . if you want."

"Sure . . . thanks." Releasing her hand, I edge around her to the bathroom and flip on the light. "I'll just be a minute."

Katniss flashes me another shy smile, fingers twisting nervously in the bottom of her shirt as the door quietly shuts. Flipping on the water, I blow out a breath and scrub a hand over my face, reaching over to grab the lone toothbrush from the green ceramic cup next to the sink.

The summer heat oppressively sticky by the second week of July, she averted her eyes the night I finally peeled off my shirt and draped my belt and pants over the back of the chair, face picking up color as she fiddled with the edge of the bedsheet. It had taken only the one awkward crossing of paths to determine that my going first in the bathroom allowed me to undress, pull off my prosthetic, and get under the covers while she brushed her teeth, sparing her the awkwardness of turning red as a freshly sliced beet while watching me stand in the middle of the room and shuck my clothes.

She's perched at the edge of the bed when I come out, chin propped pensively on one thin knee.

"All yours," I say, pausing to get a better look at her face. "Everything okay?"

"Just thinking," she answers softly.

Something in her tone immediately sets me on edge, this particular road one we've been down no shortage of times before. Sinking beside her on the mattress, I trail fingers lightly up and down her spine.

"About what?"

I get a shrug in response, her thumbnail captured in its favorite worrying spot between her teeth. And after a minute of staring blankly at the opposite wall, she pushes off the bed and disappears into the bathroom.

Sighing, I get undressed and turn off the lights. My leg isn't too sore today, which is good considering how much we'll probably be walking tomorrow, but it still feels better once I get my prosthetic off and the cream rubbed in. The toilet flushes and Katniss reappears.

The only light left in the room is from the small lamp on her side, which she immediately switches off, a move I can't help but see as deliberately designed to keep me from seeing that she’s upset. She crawls beneath the covers and without a word, curls closer to me, fingers sliding across my palm in the dark.

I shift slightly onto my side, our positions mirrored, and ever so carefully run my knuckles back and forth from her shoulder to her arm. It's quiet at first, the sounds of nighttime drifting in through the bedroom window she keeps open for me. The tissue paper rustle of the willow tree in back, swelling beneath the comforting drone of cicadas, a lone owl hooting mournfully. Katniss swallows.

"For a long time," she hesitates, voice so small her breath barely reaches my collarbone, "I thought I wanted to die. After Prim."

I don't respond, not even to tell her for the thousandth time that I'm sorry so much was taken from her. From both of us. Instead, I squeeze her fingers tighter, using my free thumb to brush away the tear that slides down the edge of her nose.

"I'd . . . lie there trying to think of different ways to do it."

She blinks, a quick, nervous motion, clearly worried about telling me. And in the pause that follows, I know it's no accident when a single finger begins to lightly outline the bite mark on the back of my hand.

"How many pills to take. Where to go to cut my wrists so no one would find me in time. All the different things I could use to make a noose. It was only after you came back that I was finally _glad_. You know, that you stopped me."

Her fingers continue to trace a soft arc along the scar, gliding back and forth along the same path I used to repetitively rub for hours on end while locked in my room at the hospital, confused, angry, horny and utterly obsessed with all things _Katniss Everdeen_. And unsurprisingly, the whisper of her fingertip draws flickers of emotion in its wake, fear, uncertainty and arousal trailing dark and forbidden as she slowly strokes the mark she once left. Back and forth. Back and forth. Unapologetic. In the long forgotten moment she bit me, a creature wild and feral as the woods in which she hunts. _Branding_ me as hers.

Shifting my hips fractionally away so she won’t feel me getting hard, I clear my throat, thumb toying with hers under the covers.

"I thought of you. Every day. Wondered where you were. Worried."

It's what we do now. After the lights go out, when we first lie down. In the dead of night, when one of us just can't go to sleep. Clasp hands tightly in the dark and exchange small kernels of truth. What we can each be sure is _real_.

_For weeks I hid in abandoned air ducts. Sometimes, it would go on for hours. You start to wish you were dead. Haymitch and I . . . we blamed each other. And ourselves. It was small. Dark. Maybe eight feet by twelve. No bed, cot, mattress, blanket. Nothing. Just some sort of . . . bucket._

I take a breath, continuing. "After the way we parted, I thought you were angry with me . . . hated me."

"No."

She says it quietly, but without hesitation, fingers tightening around mine. I rub her knuckles, staring up at the ceiling.

"For a long time, Dr. Aurelius wouldn't tell me anything." Shaking my head, I chuckle darkly. "And then once I found out where you _really_ were . . ."

She doesn't answer, and after a few minutes I lift an arm so she can curl into her usual position against my chest. There’s awkwardness now, a tentative positioning of hands and careful settling of knees, but the tension gradually bleeds from her muscles as I stroke the length of her back, her head settling into its resting spot over my heart.

 

* * *

 

Haymitch’s second visit goes better. Marginally.

Having had ample time to stare at the walls of my makeshift prison, seething over all the things I'd forgotten to say, when the door slides open the next day, I'm nothing if not prepared.

His eyes flick to mine. Swallowing, I scramble to sit up, tethered to the bed rails only at the arms this morning.

This time my hands clench into fists, pain and unfocused rage hardening into something far more toxic. This time, my words are cold, purposeful, stabbing straight to the bone instead of slashing aimlessly like a blade in the hand of a sleeping drunk.

He waits patiently until my throat is scratched raw and voice is starting to fade, until I’ve run out of vile things to call him and finally fall silent. And then he pushes away from the end of my bed.

"Quite a mouth for a merchant."

And goes.

 

* * *

 

It happens almost by chance, on a dreary Friday afternoon halfway through February.

Hadriana and I are on our way back from an appointment upstairs and running late to my second scheduled session of the day with Dr. Aurelius. It’s a change he implemented at my request, and one that gives us an entire hour in the morning to go through various tapes and work intensively on restoring my memories, then time to meet up again later for my regular session after I’ve had a break. It's intense, and usually frustrating. But for the first time since waking up to discover I’d been dumped here in the chaos following Coin's assassination and would have to stay until he decides to release me, I feel like I'm actually making some sort of progress.

The hallway is fairly crowded for this time of day, and as we near the elevators, I hear it, whispered excitedly in a passing conversation.

_“--ockingjay.”_

The breath freezes in my throat. Craning to see who spoke, I follow the couple with my eyes, silently debating for the second and a half it takes Hadriana to place a hand at my back.

 _“Peeta,”_ she warns sternly. “Keep walking.”

I swallow, hands clenching into fists.

They’ve eased my restrictions in the last week because of consistently good behavior. I’m allowed more time out of my room each day. To be escorted from place to place by only one staff member instead of two. To go to Dr. Aurelius’ office for sessions. And it would only take one mistake to fuck everything up.

Forcing one foot to move and then the other, I silently limp towards the elevators. We stand on opposite sides of the compartment, me with my arms folded, Hadriana watching my every move with a wary eye and a hypodermic syringe carefully concealed in one hand. The elevator glides smoothly down three floors. And when the bell dings and the doors open onto the psych ward, I’m greeted by my own personal welcoming committee.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I all but shout, backing up against the wall and raking a hand through my hair. “I didn’t even fucking _do_ anything.”

Dr. Aurelius nods slightly and makes room for me to pass. “Let’s go, Peeta.”

“Why am I in trouble? I _didn’t do_ anything.” Glaring at Decima, who is clearly also hiding a dose of sedative behind her back, I turn to him. “And what is _she_ doing here?”

Ignoring the question, Dr. Aurelius leans over and keys something into the control panel when the elevator doors start to close.

“Let’s discuss this in your room.”

“Are you going to sedate me?” I demand, looking warily between the three of them. “I don’t want any of you to fucking touch me.”

“That shouldn’t be necessary if you go back to your room voluntarily.”

Shooting Hadriana a filthy look, I push away from the wall and storm past them. Dr. Aurelius follows a little ways behind me, with Decima just behind him, but I refuse to acknowledge her.

“It wasn’t my fucking fault. Someone in the hallway was talking about Katniss. I stopped because I overheard them, but that was it--”

We reach my room and Dr. Aurelius swipes his card to open the door. “Go on in, Peeta. I’ll be there in just a moment.”

I scoff. “You’re not even going to _listen_ to my side of it?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t you just tell me? You overheard someone talking about Katniss in the hallway and so you stopped . . . was there something else you wanted to add?”

Lip curling, I gesture to where Hadriana stands silently with Decima in the background. “What’s the point? You’re going to believe _her_ over me anyway.”

“Peeta.” My name holds a quiet warning. Blowing out a breath, I fidget in place. Dr. Aurelius continues in a softer tone. “I’d like you to go into your room now and calm down. I’ll be in shortly, and then we can talk.”

I swallow and shake my head, but turn and go into the room. It’s been cleaned while I was away, searched too, no doubt, and I sneer at the stack of freshly laundered clothes on my way to the bathroom. After I pee and wash my hands, I splash cold water on my face and come back out to flop on the bed. He knocks a minute later.

I don’t look up at him, flipping the empty water cup from my nightstand up in the air and catching it.

“You don’t think it’s dumb to bother knocking when you just had two nurses standing by to jab me with sedatives if I blinked too fast?”

Coming around to the side of the bed, he pulls out his usual chair and takes a seat. I roll my eyes when he turns to a fresh page, but still doesn’t answer.

“Peeta, do you imagine when you’ve had to be sedated here in the past, it was intended as some sort of punishment?”

Grunting, I shrug.

“That I signed off on it because you said something that made me angry?” he continues calmly, putting the pen down. “Or because it was more convenient to silence you when you were doing something I or one of the nurses didn’t particularly like?”

I exhale and sit up, messing with the cuff on my pants. He waits.

“No,” I finally say. “It was because I was going to hurt someone.”

“Or yourself.” Dr. Aurelius leans back in the chair. “This hospital, and this floor in particular, have very strict standards on when restraint and sedation, which is a form of chemical restraint, are allowed to be used.” He pauses. “And for the record, Hadriana concurred with your version of events from upstairs.”

Laughing dryly, I fold my arms.

“Sure didn’t stop her from paging you and Decima though, huh?” I shake my head. “And do you know what the best part was? After the way I _freaked_ out the last time in physical therapy, I was stupid enough for half a second to think you were actually going to be _pleased_ to hear I only stopped and stared when someone said _Mockingjay_. That I didn’t _completely_ fucking lose it.”

“I _am_ pleased with your progress,” he says in a gentler tone.

A long moment passes while I pick at my thumbnail.

“Yeah, well, you always take their word over mine,” I mutter under my breath.

He tilts his head, regarding me silently. “I take it we’re talking about the incident with Decima now?”

I stare out the window for a minute. “She shouldn’t have taken my sketchbook.”

Dr. Aurelius makes a note and then sets the clipboard aside.

“There’s something I’m curious about, Peeta, one question you still haven’t answered.”

“I’ll answer it if you tell me where Katniss is.”

He smiles patiently, but then his expression grows serious. “Your anger with Decima seems disproportionate to what happened and the length of time that’s expired since. And somewhat misdirected, too, given that she was merely following procedures _I’ve_ put in place for this floor, and in some cases, ordered specifically for your care.”

I frown. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, in plainest terms, why aren’t you angry with me?”

I scoff at this. “I’m _always_ pissed at you.”

But I can’t quite look him in the eye as I say it. Because we both know it isn’t exactly true, that even though we still have our moments, and I can’t always seem to keep my temper from flaring out of control, things have been better lately between us . . . almost good at times.

“I don’t know,” I finally counter. “So where’s Katniss?”

Ignoring the question, he flips a page.

"How did your appointment go?"

Snorting, I rub the bandage on my hand. The scar from Katniss’ teeth is slowly healing, but he still makes me keep it covered most of the day so I can’t touch it constantly.

"He basically said I'm only fucked up in the head."

Dr. Aurelius frowns and lowers the report. "Peeta."

I roll my eyes at the all too familiar chide in his tone, mentally preparing for yet another lecture on how I'm _not crazy_. Or how my _tendency to belittle my own emotional needs_ is something that bears addressing.

"You know what I mean. He said the tests didn't find anything physically wrong."

"No." Turning the page back, he raises an eyebrow. "And that's a positive sign, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes," I concede, picking at my nails.

He waits a minute. "How are the exercises going?"

I blow out a breath, lowering my head before he can follow it with _only what you’re comfortable sharing_ , which he says about every five minutes now as if to reassure me I'm completely in control. Something that's gotten irritating as fuck.

"They’re . . . annoying."

"Yes, I can imagine."

I grunt, _annoying_ not covering half of it. Annoying was having to gradually reacquaint myself with all the mundane characteristics of apples without going into a flashback. The _color_ of your average apple, held up on a small card. The size, smell, and texture of an apple skin. An outline of an apple-shaped object. The taste of apple juice. An _actual_ apple in a photograph, each exposure progressively longer until eventually I was able to handle having a small apple in my room. Touching it. Tossing it from hand to hand. Even taking a bite.

And then he made me start all over with a deck of cards.

Having to painstakingly desensitize myself to _this_ list of potential triggers, dripping water, the hard surface of the floor, the most obvious and potent of which being Katniss herself, while jerking off nothing short of miserable, it was a full week before I felt in control of my reactions enough to begin methodically stroking myself while looking at a sketch of her propped beside the bathroom sink.

To let my hand slowly move back and forth, a few seconds longer each time but never quite to completion just yet, while staring into the silvery gray eyes of the girl who was the face of my every fear, who smirked at me knowingly in every fantasy and whose strong, tanned legs gripped my waist in every dream. Whose tongue I couldn’t help but imagine tasting again with a mixture of hunger, longing and loathing. Wanting to press feather-light kisses to the edge of her mouth, soft and delicate as the touch of a butterfly’s wing. To crush her lips, small and submitting, under mine. To _bite_ them, bite _her_ , sucking dark, vicious bruises onto her neck like the ones my hands must have once left, marking her again and again as mine, and then hide, cowering in horror of injuries already committed and those yet to be discovered, the monster inside me drawn out like a gnat to honey at the sight of her long, dark braid.

I fidget in place. “You, uh . . . think it’s really going to work?”

He regards me silently.

“With time, yes.”

Nodding, I poke at the cuff of my pants.

“So, uh. Sometimes during the flashbacks . . . I, uh . . . see things.” My face heats up. “Or I get the urge to do things, you know. _To_ her.”

“Can you be more specific?”

Sure I’m about the shade of mashed strawberries at the bottom of a mixing bowl, I shrug. “Um . . . I don’t know.”

My voice comes out sort of strangled. Dr. Aurelius leans closer.

“I know this is uncomfortable, Peeta. And I’m sorry for that.”

I swallow. “Sometimes I’m, uh . . . we’re kissing, but then all of a sudden I’m . . . biting her.”

To his credit, he doesn’t react other than to write it down. I pick at the hem of my shirt.

“Biting her where?”

Exhaling, I shake my head. “Um . . . her mouth. Or her neck.” I run a hand over my face. “And other times I’m sucking on her neck so hard she cries out. And . . . it leaves a row of bruises.”

He nods silently, taking it all down. “What else?”

I shrug again.

Dr. Aurelius raises an eyebrow. “You never fantasize about sex?”

I squirm a little, heat crawling up my neck. “No, I do. But . . .”

“But what?”

Picking at a stray thread on the blanket, I take a breath. “I’ve never pictured wanting to _hurt_ her. Like that.”

Even just saying the words, it’s hard to tamp down the revulsion in my voice, sickened at the very idea, and even more so by the thought there _could_ be some part of me lurking deep below where I could consciously touch it that might secretly delight in such a thing, that might be lying in wait for the perfect moment to strike.

He makes a note.

“To your best recollection, were you and Katniss ever intimate?”

“If we were, I don’t remember it,” I answer quietly, looking down at my hands. “What if I . . . hurt her again?”

Setting the clipboard aside, Dr. Aurelius leans forward.

“You remember we discussed before that proper protocols were not followed during your first hospitalization and release. That won’t happen this time.”

“So you think I’ll be able to have contact with her again safely?”

He smiles gently. “I do. With time. This process works, despite its tediousness, a fact I can confirm if only by reminding you that they served apple turnovers today at lunch, and I didn’t need to be paged up here to talk you down from an episode or panic attack.”

I snort. “You’re fucking hilarious.”

Face growing serious, he picks up the clipboard.

“Our task in teaching you to manage this particular trigger will be more difficult because Katniss was used as such a strong manipulator in your hijacking. It’s far more complex than simply desensitizing you to an object like a deck of cards or a certain scent . . . something you might have negative _associations_ with, but not purposefully implanted memories strengthened by the aid of a powerful hallucinogenic.”

“Well, when you put it that way, it makes me sound pretty hopelessly fucked up,” I mutter under my breath.

“Not at all.” He pauses and in those few seconds of evaluation, I know what’s coming. “How have you been sleeping?”

I shake my head. “About the same as the last time you asked, which was what, five minutes ago?”

Nodding silently, he makes a note. “And what about your moods?”

“They’re fine--”

“Any new feelings of hopelessness, depression, anger--”

“Look, do we have to get into that today?” I interrupt, picking at the bandage again.

We didn’t talk about much else the first week. But things have mostly gotten a little better each day since the one where I finally told him what the guards did. I have moments where I’m pissed at everyone and everything. And nights where I just can’t sleep. He lets me have a pass when I’m feeling overwhelmed, and sends reading material up to my room, books or pamphlets I toss on the nightstand and ignore, but sometimes wind up eventually flipping through late at night when there’s nothing better to do.

And for the most part, when I tell him I don't want to talk about it right then, he listens.

Dr. Aurelius silently flips a page in my file and adjusts his glasses. "Are you noticing any adverse effects from your medication? It's been nearly two weeks now, since we started the new one."

"Uh." Shrugging, I run a hand through my hair. "Nothing too bad. My mouth gets dry for an hour or two after I take it. And I feel tired sometimes, I guess."

"All the time, or just in the evenings?" He jots a few notes and glances up. "It should make you mildly drowsy for about twelve hours, which is why I have you take it with dinner. Given your difficulties sleeping, I thought that side effect might actually be beneficial."

"Just the evenings." Waiting for him to finish writing, I stare out the window. "How is Katniss?"

He ignores the question. "Have you given any more thought to the suggestion I made at our last session?"

I snort. "What, to helping out in the kitchen? Don’t you already have Avoxes or some sort of staff who take care of the cooking and baking for the hospital?"

"Of course." Straightening his glasses, he opens my file. "For you it would be of therapeutic value, though I'm sure our patients would appreciate any improvements you might be able to make to the bread."

He takes out a photograph and studies it in silence for a moment before passing it over to me.

I don't even bother to examine the cake at the center of the picture, knowing I probably could have recreated every soft aquamarine swell of sea foam and shimmering wave of schooling fish by heart, the sight of the tall sailboat masts and delicate frosted starfish causing an uncomfortable tightness to form in my chest.

Instead my gaze travels to the guests huddled around to watch Annie and Finnick do the honors, every face smiling but for the two I can just make out at the center of the crowd. Two faces a Head Gamemaker like Plutarch Heavensbee would have ensured there would be no way to crop from the shot. A pale, much too thin Katniss Everdeen, staring at the cake's delicate flowers and swirls as if they’re fondant lizard mutts and candied nightlock berries, some grotesque new horror served up especially for her.

And beside her, whispering instructions into her ear like always, Haymitch.

Blowing out a breath, I scrub a hand through my hair. "I don't think so."

Dr. Aurelius takes the photograph back. "Why not?"

"I just . . . don't want to."

"We've had this discussion before. I'd like to see you get out of your room more often," he presses gently. "Interact with people. Make an effort to resume parts of your old life."

"I talked to Annie when she called last week from Four," I counter, frowning. "And Felix and I play that game with the paddles in the rec room whenever we have the same break time."

"Those are both positive steps." Nodding, he laces his fingers behind one knee. "But they don't explain your refusal to start baking again, which from what I understand, has been your family’s trade for generations."

I pick at my hand for a minute.

"You know what I think is pretty fucking funny? You keep saying you want me to get out of my room more. Talk to people. You think I haven't figured out you only let me near people who can't or won't _really_ talk to me?"

He starts to interrupt. "Peeta--"

"An Avox who can't say anything. Annie, who you probably remind not to give me any real news _every_ time she calls." I pause, hands starting to shake. "What . . . would Johanna not agree to go along with your little plan? Is that why she 'hasn't called'? Why _no on_ e ever comes to see me?"

He inclines his head and I quickly stare down at my hands, cheeks growing hot at how pathetic what I've just said sounds. The room goes very quiet but for the sound of my breathing. And after a minute, Dr. Aurelius clears his throat.

"You had a visitor earlier today."

Still frowning, I don't respond. He continues in a softer voice.

"I asked him to come by tomorrow so we could have a chance to talk about it first . . . allow you time to prepare."

 _Him_.

I swallow. "Who?"

There's an odd pause, one where I can feel him studying me. But at last he decides I’m stable enough.

"Haymitch Abernathy."

I trace the imprint of Katniss' teeth, head down in the hopes he won't read anything in my face. "What time tomorrow?"

"After our first session." He nods. "It can be helpful, sometimes, if you think you may be upset or nervous, to write things down in advance--"

"I'm not upset," I interrupt. "Will we meet in one of the visitor rooms?"

"Yes."

Looking out the window for a minute, I take a breath. "And, uh . . . are you going to be there with me? Or one of the nurses?"

"Unfortunately, I have appointments the rest of the day." He waits until I meet his eye. "Would you like me to ask him to come back on a different day so I can be there?"

I shrug indifferently. "It doesn't matter."

But it does matter. Because if there's anyone likely to have information on where Katniss is and what's really going on, it's Haymitch. _If_ he'll tell me anything at all.

"How do you feel about all of this?" Dr. Aurelius asks gently.

"Fine," I answer immediately, picking at my fingernails.

He doesn't respond right away, and when he finally does, it's in much the same way he's gently prodded me into talking the past two weeks, coaxing the words out a few at a time with the reminder _I tend to do this_ , insisting I don’t care, that everything is fine and that no one can hurt me until I’m about to implode from the pressure.

"Just sit with it for a minute, Peeta. Process how you're really feeling."

I grunt and shake my head. But in the silence that follows, surprise drifts towards indifference, and then eventually, annoyance. That it had taken him a month and a half to decide to come and see me. That whether he'd been looking in on Katniss or not, he'd undoubtedly spent much of that time drinking his way to the bottom of a bottle. All the while knowing I was here, alone, mentorless, orphaned and without a single friend. Once again feeling like everyone’s second choice.

"If I ask you something, will you tell me the truth?" I watch him glance up from his clipboard, brow furrowing. "It's not about Katniss."

Seeming to debate it for a minute, Dr. Aurelius nods. "That would depend on the question. There are some I may decline to answer for various reasons."

I blow out a breath. "Did, uh, has he tried to come see me before now?"

Dr. Aurelius studies my face. "Not to my knowledge."

I don't hear anything he says the rest of the hour.

 

* * *

 

It turns into a hot, sticky August night without any breeze. The worst kind for sleeping and the best for nightmares. I kick the light summer quilt off us shortly after the lights go out, opting for just the sheet, but we both still toss and turn miserably.

Sometime in the early hours before morning, we shift places, Katniss having impossibly managed to sprawl out over most of the bed. Ticklish strands of her hair drape across both the pillow and my face, her butt inching ever further onto my side. Sighing, I rub the end of my nose and brush the dark wisps of hair off her neck, trying to spoon her the best I can despite the fact it always seems like she waits until the moment I'm just getting comfortable to start flopping around like a fish determined to flip itself back into the stream. And for someone so small, she sure can jostle the whole bed with the best of them.

It feels like we've barely been asleep for ten minutes when her quiet whimper stirs me awake, her body going rigid in my arms seconds before the sole of her foot scuttles alongside my calf.

In the first weeks, she sometimes used to catch me by surprise. Screams that seemed to come from nowhere. Hands that would flail out against attackers and mutts only she could see. After three months in the same bed, I effortlessly capture her wrists, sliding my hands down her bare arms and pulling her flush to my chest in the dark.

"Shh, Kat," I murmur in her ear, holding tight as she continues to struggle against me.

She moans, tears streaking down both cheeks and sticking her hair to her face.

"Shh, you're safe." Her elbow lodges in my stomach. I lock her in a better grip and shake her more forcefully. "Wake up, Kat."

_"I'm sorry--"_

"Katniss, wake up," I order in a stronger voice, sitting up and dragging her with me. She bursts into tears, going limp as a rag doll, and I cradle her against my chest. "Shh, it's okay. I've got you."

"Peeta."

Her arms soft and bare in her thin summer nightshift, they wind their way possessively around my neck, clinging to me greedily as tendrils of ivy wend green fingers onto a sturdy trellis, holding me like she never wants to let go. Pressing my nose to the soft skin just below her ear, I smooth her hair and inhale deeply.

"Shh . . . everything's okay now," I croon, nuzzling her neck and running a hand softly up and down the length of her back. "Shh-shh."

She shudders, but briefly uncurls a single arm long enough to wipe her cheeks, twining it around my neck when I reach up to teasingly count the freckles on the end of her nose.

_"Peeta."_

And as she mumbles it against my throat, a little petulantly this time, I can no longer pretend not to notice the way her body has shifted in my lap. That either due to her squirming or my drawing her closer, one of her legs has pushed its way across both of mine. That I can feel the soft puff of every breath ghosting over my skin, the warmth of her stomach and the rub of her tits against my chest, any space that once existed between us eliminated.

Swallowing a thick knot of shame when I start to get hard, I gently untangle her arms and nudge her away from my erection.

"Let's . . . lie down."

She lowers her head, arms still draped loosely at my neck, but acquiesces, allowing me to get situated before laying her head on my chest. Tucking an arm around her, I press a kiss to her forehead to soften the blow, our fingers silently lacing, her other arm wedging itself up between us like the crumpled wing of a small huddled bird.

A minute passes, and then two, neither of us saying anything, Katniss sniffing every once in a while and lifting our joined hands to wipe her cheeks.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" I murmur against the crown of her head, touching first fingertips and then lips to the short, wispy places where her hair was almost completely burned away, the choppy sections I still catch her poking and scowling at every once in a while when she passes a mirror fanning out towards my shoulder.

She bites her lip, a fresh wave of tears dribbling down the edge of her nose before I reach up to blot them with the sheet.

"Shh, Kat . . . hey _,_ " I soothe, lightly tracing her cheekbone with the pad of my thumb. "C'mere."

Letting me cuddle her close, she presses her cheek to my chest and lets out a sad little huff. I stroke the length of her arm until her breathing begins to calm, resting my chin by her forehead.

"It's going to get better," I whisper, so softly it barely disturbs the tiny hairs that curl at the edge of her temple. "You'll see."

Katniss toys with my thumb, not answering.

Running fingers gently through her hair, I study her face in the faint moonlight. "What if I promise to get up in a few hours and make you more cheese buns?"

And at _this_ , her mouth twitches.

Encouraged when she snuggles deeper under my arm, I tuck strands of hair, still damp with sweat, behind the shell of her ear.

"We can eat them on the hike, hmm?"

The promise curls softly around my tongue, coaxed on by the sight of her fingers clutching tight at my waist. And after a minute, she nods, breathing already beginning to slow as I press another kiss to the top of her head and turn to stare up at the ceiling.

 

* * *

 

Haymitch returns to my room in Thirteen the following day.

And this time I refuse to acknowledge him. He comes over to my bed anyway, waits while I pointedly ignore him, the doctors behind the one-way glass undoubtedly _enthralled_ in jotting down every nuance of our latest interaction. I count the track marks on my left arm from where they used to put the needles in. At least until I developed an infection and they had to change over to the right to keep pumping in the venom, sending in a medic to clean and dress the site before dosing me with an anti-infection serum and returning me to my cell so the Peacekeepers could have at it again.

I’m not sure how many minutes have passed when I finally look up at him.

"Why?"

I croak it out, voice hoarse, for all the words I'd hurled at him the day before, _one_ all I'm sure I can get out today without crumbling. _One_ bitter, angry question that will never manage to convey the depths of what it felt to be abandoned in not only one, but two arenas. Of yet another promise broken. For so many lies they feel impossible to count. And for the blows, lashes and shocks that come between questions about a rebellion I'd known nothing about, much less conspired to aid.

And as we stare at one another, me shaking from the effort not to break eye contact, him with one hand inching reflexively towards a flask that no longer takes up residence in his coat pocket, I feel a familiar throbbing pressure build on the right side of my skull, one that despite aggressive treatment and constant reassurances of the medical staff that the venom levels in my bloodstream _are_ dropping, still comes at least a dozen times a day.

Glaring one last time, I slump back on the bed just as my vision begins to darken, eerie flashes of light the last thing I register before the knockout dose slips into the crook of my arm.

 

* * *

 

Six hours, two fights, three cheese buns and countless scowls later, we make our way to the top of yet another tree-lined ridge, Katniss' hand dangling limply in mine. Clearing my throat, I turn to her.

"Are we still going the right way?"

 _"Yes,"_ she answers sullenly, tone leaving little secret of her resentment at having been all but forced to come.

I sigh and gently squeeze her fingers, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. Our first fight of the morning ensuing when I attempted to lure her from bed with the smell of breakfast, she was unwilling to lift her head an inch from the pillow, brush her teeth or get dressed, much less discuss going to the lake like we'd planned. Bursting into tears somewhere between being dragged from beneath the covers and carried into the bathroom like a snarling wildcat roused from its den, she shoved me away before I could set her on the commode, some semblance of the real Katniss Everdeen flaring to life as she angrily snapped for me to get the hell out so she could pee.

Dropping her hand for a minute, I shrug off the backpack and pull out the water bottle. "Would you like some?"

She gives me an impatient look and wipes a bead of sweat trickling down her forehead.

"We should keep going." Striding ahead without bothering to wait for me, she calls over her shoulder, "We're almost there."

I grunt and take a drink, stuffing the bottle in my pack and limping after her. Of all her bad moods, _angry Katniss_ isn't one of my favorites, but I'll take it over the blank-eyed, vacant girl who can sit and stare woodenly at the fireplace for hours on end.

Still situating my pack, I come through a break in a long row of pine trees and almost crash right into her back. She's standing with one arm hugged around her middle, the other hand clasped over her mouth. But it's the faint glassiness of her eyes as she stares out at the cool blue waters of the lake in the distance that tells me she's not mad at me for dragging her along. Not anymore.

"C'mon, you." Nudging her elbow as I pass, it isn't until I'm a few yards down the pile of boulders that line one end of the lake that I turn back. "Someone still owes me a swimming lesson."

We drop our packs inside an old cement structure a little ways from the water, a crude sort of house, and I pull out the tube of ointment Dr. Aurelius sent from the Capitol for protecting our fragile new skin from the sun.

"You want to swim first, or eat lunch?"

Busy fussing with the logs in the fireplace, she leans an old bent poker against the stone hearth and shrugs. "Still kinda early."

I raise an eyebrow and tug my shirt over my head. "Wow. _Katniss Everdeen_ refusing food?"

Eyes flitting away, she flicks a piece of charred wood in my direction and stands. "Ha ha."

And although I don't say anything, it's hard not to notice the way her arms draw in around herself like a blanket that will never quite stretch far enough, never cover all the flaws she wishes to hide, her fingers nervously tracing the scars that twist their way down from her shoulder.

"Hey." Finishing with the spots on my chest, I hand her the tube of ointment. "Think you could do my back?"

The first cool touch of her fingers makes me jump, and I shoot a pretend glare over one shoulder when I hear her suppress a snort.

"Sorry."

"No, you're not," I retort, smiling at the sight of her biting her lip as she carefully works ointment into the patches of synthetic skin that stretch across my back. "What?"

"Nothing," she mumbles, squeezing more of the clear goo into her palm.

 _"What?"_ I ask again, teasingly this time, reaching back to tickle her hip when she doesn't answer and getting my hand batted away for the effort.

Katniss sighs, fingertips lightening for a few seconds against my back before she reluctantly speaks. "You're . . . getting some of your weight back. That's all."

I turn when she presses the tube into my hand. "You calling me fat?"

"Hardly. When you came back from the Capitol, you were . . ."

She shakes her head, fidgeting with the tail of her shirt, and as I stare intently into her face in the hopes her eyes will find their way to mine, I can't help but notice the soft, rosy bloom of color in her cheeks. She clears her throat.

"You look _good_ . . . now." Waving a hand as if to vaguely indicate areas of positive change, she quickly sticks her thumbnail in her mouth, face growing redder. "More like . . . you know . . . _you_."

"Thanks." Gesturing with the tube of ointment, I fail to hide a smile when she scowls. "So, uh, you going in like that?"

She pushes a loose strand of hair out of her eyes and squirms in place for all of half a second before turning her back to me and peeling off her top.

I swallow, staring at her back, at the way thin ribbon-like straps drape loosely over both her shoulders, the flimsy cotton camisole the color of buttercream frosting surprisingly delicate for someone who just last week spent the better part of an afternoon gutting and plucking a turkey. And right as my imagination starts running wild with thoughts of what the _front_ must look like, I catch the way her hands are crossed over her body, one covering the place on her hip where the flames that killed Prim left their mark on her skin, the other touching a graft on her upper arm I've seen before, fingertips worrying a light path back and forth as if I wasn't even there.

"Need some help?" I ask softly.

She flinches and peers nervously over one shoulder, eyes never quite daring to find mine. But eventually she nods. Squeezing a small amount of ointment into my palm, I pass the tube to her and begin gently applying it to the scarred places on her back. Katniss takes the ointment without a word and starts applying it to her front.

"I don't really remember much." Hand on her waist, I turn her a little to better reach the scar that snakes around her hip. "About swimming. We may have to start fresh."

"Fine by me." She inhales quietly at the end when I gingerly move the strap at her shoulder off to one side so I can get to a spot on her upper back, cloudy gray eyes tracking the path of my fingertips like an animal she's stalking in the woods.

"This okay?" I manage hoarsely, already half hard.

She only nods. I turn and pretend to glance out the window while we strip off shoes, socks and trousers, hoping she's still too pure to stare right at my crotch and won't notice I've popped a huge tent. But by the time we finish getting undressed, it’s just getting worse, not better.

“Ready?”

“Uh, you go on ahead.” Crouching as if to dig something out of the backpack, I nod towards the lake. “I’ll be right there.”

The silence stretches out, her voice oddly strained when she finally speaks. “Oh . . . uh, sure.”

I tug my pants and shoes back on, hoping she’ll assume I just need to pee. Once I’m safely out of sight, I find a good-sized tree and duck behind it, lowering my fly and bracing myself against the trunk. Katniss in her clingy little camisole floods the back of my eyelids as I make a snug fist and push through it, blinking up at me innocently, one of the loose ribbons slipping down the edge of her shoulder as she gets on her knees in front of me and opens her mouth to take me in--

 _“Fuck,”_ I grunt in a whisper, pumping harder. _“Katniss.”_

Her tongue paints every last inch of me like she’s licking up long sugary streaks of icing from one of the bulging, cream-filled éclairs we used to sell at the bakery. Possessively, like I’m _hers_ and she’s marking her claim on me yet again. Like she’s always known _we_ would eventually happen and has been content merely to tease me with that knowledge up until now.

And then she settles into a slow circling pattern that only seems to further inflame the swollen ridge of my head, tongue fluttery and flat as she laps up the trickle of fluid I can’t hold back from her any longer, feeling a little more weep from the end with a soft, pleasurable tremor every time she raises her eyes to mine, and it’s all I can do to keep from chanting her name as I plunge again and again into the warm depths of her mouth.

“Katniss,” I groan through gritted teeth, letting go of the tree and reaching down to cup my sack.

The Katniss in my mind toys with it lazily, tugging a little, rolling my nuts in her palm, mouth very much occupied as I piston in and out of her lips with increasing need. Her eyes are dark and hooded as she watches me from down on her knees, both of us straining now because of the angle she’s teased me from the ground, my cock flushed a throbbing, turgid red that she’s clearly relishing from the faint half-smile at the corner of her lips, _knowing_ I’m hers, _knowing_ how completely she possesses me when at the light command of her tongue feathering her name in gossamer strokes round and round my tip, I let out a low whine and obediently begin to release.

 _“Katniss,”_ I moan, pulsing spurt after spurt onto the warm surface of her tongue. She keeps swallowing until I’m through, and then sucks me clean, staring up at me with soft eyes as I finally pull out of her mouth.

“Fuck.” Groaning, I dig out a handkerchief and quickly clean up, pearly white dribbles having splattered a tell-tale trail between my hand and the tree.

Katniss is floating on her back when I wade into the lake and doesn’t notice me until I’m nearly to her.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” The lake bottom is slimy between my toes, and I kind of hate to think about what might be swimming around in there, but after the first minute or so where my nuts want to go hide somewhere and never come out again the water starts to feel a lot better.

Taking my hand, Katniss chews her lip. "Um, let's review floating first."

I let her rotate me to one side, hoping my boner stays away for the time being or I’m in for a dunking. "Uh, okay. Maybe you could show me again?"

"Like this."

And as she releases my hand and gracefully extends her arms and legs to glide for a few seconds across the top of the water, eyes squinted shut against the bright midday sun, it takes everything I have to keep my gaze trained on her _face_.

Standing up, Katniss slicks the water off her hair and places one hand on my stomach and the other at the small of my back.

_Fuck._

"It's okay, Peeta." She frowns, clearly not understanding. "You can stand up here, obviously, and besides, I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

"'Kay," I mumble. "Here goes, I guess."

She doesn't try to drown me the minute I’m on my back, which has to be a good sign. Water gets in my ears, silencing everything else. Katniss’ voice. The chirp of the birds and reassuring rush of the wind. All I can hear is the hollow rasp of my own breath.

Tensing, I feel myself start to go under and panic when I get a mouthful of water. Unable to right myself, I struggle until I feel small, strong arms around my chest, hauling me to the surface.

 _"Fuck,"_ I choke out, coughing as my feet scramble to find the lake bottom.

Katniss rubs my back. "You okay?"

I cough again, face starting to burn. "Yeah, I’m fine."

"What happened?"

Wiping my nose, I shake my head to get the remaining water out of my ears. "Nothing. Forget it."

For a few seconds she just stares up at me, unmoving, me still trying to catch my breath and her giving me this really odd look. And then she steps up, hooks her arms underneath my shoulders and hugs me fiercely.

"Peeta, tell me," she whispers a moment later, after I've bent down so she can comb fingers through my hair, her other arm snug around my back, holding me close and rubbing my shoulders in a way that feels indescribably good.

I swallow. "I just . . . panicked when I couldn’t hear anything. You know?"

Katniss doesn't answer immediately and I think she can tell it's not the whole truth. But she doesn’t push. "We can practice other things."

The rest of the lesson goes a little better. I work on paddling with my head out of the water, and with Katniss hanging tight to my hand, reluctantly try floating on my back another few times before calling it enough for one day.

"Not bad," she declares while I get more water out of my ears, briefly diving under and resurfacing a short distance away. "We'll have to write Annie."

"I’m not sure being able to put your head in the water is that big of an achievement in Four," I tease dryly, wrinkling my nose when she kicks water at me. "Hey, cut it out."

Katniss closes her eyes and stretches her arms out to either side, propelling herself along lazily. And this time, it's impossible to keep my gaze from drifting away from her face. To her soft, perfect tits the size of small kneaded buns, nipples dusky and dark through the camisole, standing in tiny peaks in the cold water. And lower still, to where just under the rippling waves, the dark thatch between her legs shows through a single layer of wet cloth, a brief glimpse causing my cock to swell for the second time in less than an hour, the soft nest of curls hinting she's no more enamored with the latest Capitol trend towards _deforestation_ than I am.

Katniss flips over and comes up a short distance away, standing as she tips her head back to wring out her hair. Her tits bob perkily with the motion, and I swallow hard before looking away.

"You hungry?"

"Yeah," I answer, a little too quickly. "You?"

"Let's eat."

We spread out the blanket under a shady grove of maples and I take off my leg so the liner can dry out before the hike back. Katniss passes me the cloth filled with blackberries after taking a few for herself. We don't say much at first, eating in companionable silence, and it isn't until a mockingjay lands on a branch nearby and trills her four-note call that it dawns on me why it all looks so familiar.

"This is where you sang." I wait until she reluctantly meets my eye. "Real or not real?"

Katniss finishes stuffing a cheese bun in her mouth, chewing for a minute before answering.

"Real."

I nod, toying with mine as I try to decide whether I want to ask the next question. But as much as I _don't_ , I can tell not knowing is going to eat away at me until I do.

"You and Gale used to come out here . . . real or not real?"

"No, not real. Well . . . just once." She snorts when I glance over and shakes her head. "Wasn't a good memory."

Unable to help myself, I ask it. "Why?"

Katniss reaches for the water bottle and takes a sip, offering it to me before capping it.

"We fought," she replies shortly, and stares out at the water for a long time. "So, um, have you decided which page you want to do next? In the book?"

"Not yet." Brow furrowing, I pick at a string on the blanket. "What was the fight about?"

“It was the day of the whipping.”

I wait. “And?”

She blows out a breath, jaw set. "Do we really have to do this again?" Frowning when I don't answer, she stands up and grabs her clothes. "I'm going hunting."

Annoyed at the blithe dismissal, I yank out my sketchpad and turn my back on her, waiting until she's slung her arrows over one shoulder and stalked off towards the marshy side of the lake to reluctantly peer in the direction she's gone.

I catch no more than a flash of her profile before she disappears into some tall, reedy cattails I vaguely remember seeing in the plant book when we flipped through it together, bow out, an arrow nocked. Swallowing, I tap the end of the pencil against a page so white it makes my eyes squint in the sunlight, pale and painfully blank.

It's well over an hour before she returns, game bag swaying heavily as she drops it beside the quilt. I glance up, but don't say anything. Katniss sits a foot or two away and hugs her knees to her chest, chewing her lip for a minute.

"He never brought my mother here, you know."

I study her profile, watching the nervous way she picks at a blade of grass.

"Or Prim. Just me. It was something," she hesitates, "that was just for the two of us. That's why I never took Gale here."

"Except you _did_."

It comes out quietly, before I can help it. Huffing out a breath, Katniss turns to face me.

"For your information, I only asked him to meet me here because I needed someplace so far from town that the Capitol wouldn't overhear," she scoffs. "It wasn't like _this_."

I shrug, still not looking at her. "If you say so."

"You think if I had _really_ wanted to bring him here before that, I wouldn't have just done it?" she snaps.

For a minute there's nothing but the sound of the wind in the trees and a lone mockingjay singing quietly somewhere up above us. I roll my eyes.

"Yeah, well." Making a sound under my breath, I toss the charcoal pencil aside. "I've never understood why you do much of anything."

The words hang in the air between us. Harsh. Spiteful. And tinged with undeniable truth. Hurt registers in her face the second before she turns away, eyes growing dark as a late summer storm. I sigh, ripping blades of grass in half beside her until she finally speaks.

"I never took anyone here because I didn't want to share it." She fidgets, reluctantly clarifying. "Didn't want to share _him_." Pausing, she frowns at my pile of destroyed stems. "And I didn't ask _you_ to come with me today because I wanted to talk about _Gale_."

Heat creeps up my neck. She leans over to pick up one of the grass blades and spins it between her fingers, hair trailing messily past her cheek. I exhale.

"I’m sorry."

She doesn't answer right away. After a moment, I reach over and lace our fingers.

"Me, too," she admits at last, toying with my thumb. "I was . . . a little grouchy earlier."

I laugh sharply. "A _little_? I practically had to carry you here."

Narrowing her eyes, she flicks a piece of grass at me. I brush it out of my hair, grab her around the waist and dig fingers into her side, tickling her mercilessly. She shrieks loudly enough to scare away every mockingjay for miles, giggling and kicking at me between pleas to let her go.

By the time we finally call a truce, we've gotten all tangled up on the blanket. Katniss slides off my lap, cheeks flushed, actually _smiling_. I watch her smooth a wrinkle in the quilt and bite her lip, tucking her hair behind one ear.

"This is nice." Her cheeks pick up color. "You know. Being here."

Hand still shaking a little, she keeps missing the same strand of hair, or maybe it's just windier this close to the water, but the third time her fingers skim right by it, I go in to get it for her.

"Here, let me."

She swallows when my fingertips brush past her temple, face going slack. And as I catch her nervously licking her lips, I know I'm not the only one who feels it. The tension stretching between us, live and tingling as an electric current, drawing us together as I stare transfixed at her mouth.

Katniss sighs quietly and props her weight on one arm, inching tentatively closer. And as her breath parts my lips as if by unspoken command, I can think of nothing but how long it's been since I've felt her mouth locked with mine. Since the tunnels. The Capitol. Since the kiss she’d forced on me while my hands were bound and my mind wasn’t entirely my own, the pressure of her tongue delving its way into my mouth, hard, dark and _wanted_. Of how desperately I've craved the taste of her lips again, longed for the feeling of her fingers combing through my hair night after night in the hospital, willing to give almost anything for a few stolen seconds with her. Even if part of me knows we _shouldn't_.

And before I can think better of it, her nose brushes softly against mine, and I’m close enough to count every eyelash as she tips her head, allows her eyes to flutter closed. The heat of her breath reaches me the second before our lips touch, before I taste the light flavor of blackberries still lingering on her mouth, feel her exhale shakily against my cheek and lean closer into the kiss, wanting to soak in the petal softness of her lips and tickle of her hair skimming my chin, wanting _more_.

But I don’t get it. Neither of us do. Because a part of me is still screaming inside, knows this is a mistake. That it's all too much. Too fast. And it's that part that forces me to pull fractionally away, press my forehead to hers and run a hand gently down the outside of her arm.

"Kat--"

At first, she misunderstands, guilt forming an uncomfortable knot in my gut when the corner of her mouth quirks as if she thinks I might just be teasing her. But then she gets it, and the change in her posture is immediate.

Face clouding, she looks down, occupying herself with picking at the grass again. I rub the back of her wrist, careful to keep my voice soft.

"Let's not . . . go too fast, okay?"

Cheeks stained a dark, miserable pink, Katniss yanks her hand away and chews at the edge of her thumbnail.

Shaking my head, I tug it from her mouth. "Don't do that. You know you're just going to make it bleed."

Squirming from my grip, she scoots further away on the blanket, far enough that I can’t reach her, and folds her legs, concentrating on crumpling a fallen leaf into tiny pieces.

"Do you not . . . _feel_ that way about me anymore?"

"No. It isn't that."

She digests this. "Something from the hijacking, then? Touching me still disgusts you too much?"

At this, I can't help the short bark of laughter that erupts.

"Hardly."

Finally lifting her eyes to mine, Katniss looks at me expectantly, but slowly frowns when I make no move towards her. She goes back to staring at the lake, fingers rubbing uncertainly over her bare arms.

"Are you not," pausing, she stiffens, " _attracted_ to me anymore? You know, because of . . ."

She doesn't finish, and doesn't have to, the way her shoulders start to fold as she moves to cover the worst of her scars saying it all. I lower my head, wondering what she would do if I told her I spent most of the time we were apart picturing pushing her back onto the blanket, kissing her breathless until she allowed me to work her top up and the camisole covering her tits with it, laving her nipple in soft circles with my tongue until it was no longer a tight, virgin bud plucked fresh from the cold water, but warm and flushed pink from a bout of eager sucking, quivering with want between my lips.

Until she keened with pleasure and arched the other trembling tip up in search of the heat of my mouth and wet swirl of my tongue, wrists locked on either side of her head by the pressure of my hands, chanting my name in a whisper, a moan, and a plea until finally I consented to lower my lips to her chest a second time and began to worship the neglected one with equal fervor. _Always_ Katniss Everdeen. _Only_ Katniss Everdeen.

"You have no idea." Waiting until she looks up, I shake my head and smile sadly. "How much I want you."

This time she simply stares. "Then . . . what is it?"

Huffing out a sigh when I fail to offer anything else, she picks distractedly at a thread on the quilt, and I can almost hear her argument that _we agreed to talk about things_. And we had been. About everything but _this_.

I run a hand through my hair. "I just . . . don't think we're ready for anything else. Not yet."

She nods, chewing on her fingernail again. "Why?"

"Because we would have to be _sure_." Shrugging when her brow furrows, I turn to stare out at the lake. "Both of us."

The silence this time is far more volatile, something in her expression darkening as she defiantly lifts her chin.

"This is about what happened between us before,” she accuses. “You’re trying to get back at me."

I scoff. "That's ridiculous."

"So you're _not_ still mad?" she counters, tilting her head. "Then why do you keep bringing up Gale?"

"Because I want to know the truth," I snap. "And you lied to me."

“Oh?” Katniss snorts, muttering under her breath, "And who's not angry?"

I roll my eyes. She glares, taking an apple core from lunch and hurling it off in the direction of the pine trees. After a minute, I exhale.

"Can we head back? It's getting hot."

We fold up the quilt in silence and leave it inside the cement house so we won't have to carry it all the way out here next time. _If_ she even wants there to be a next time.

Katniss stalks along silent as a cat several yards in front of me.

Finally I sigh, waiting until we’re at a good shady spot just after a creek to call out to her.

"Earlier, when you got mad and just walked off?" I begin, slowing.

She turns and folds her arms, eyes narrowing when I gesture between us.

" _If_ we were going to do this, we couldn’t just change our minds the next day, waffle back and forth. There are parts of my brain that are too messed up to deal with that sort of flip-flopping, will misunderstand because of the hijacking and because of our history."

She sets her jaw stubbornly and stares at the ground.

"This time we would have to be sure . . . we would have to _both_ be sure so that no one gets hurt--"

"All right. I get it," she snaps. "Can we keep walking?"

Turning on her heel before I get a chance to respond, she storms off towards a grassy meadow, setting such a fast pace that it's not long before I'm struggling to keep up. She glances over one shoulder, noticing, and slows.

"Is your leg--?"

"It's fine," I answer curtly, even though I can already tell it's probably going to keep me up all night.

She makes a sound under her breath, frowning when I limp past her. "Peeta--"

She catches my arm and I slow, allowing her to lead me over to a fallen tree to rest. Rooting through the pack, I dig out two pain tablets, swallow them, and pass the water bottle to her. She takes a long drink and exhales, lowering her head.

"I'm not the one who was confused about what I wanted."

It comes out before I can help it. Even though part of me recognizes the truth in what she's saying. That she hasn't mentioned Gale in months, doesn't seem particularly thrilled whenever his name comes up in news reports on the rare occasion we decide to sit down to watch a program together. That the only person still dragging him into conversations is _me_.

Katniss closes her eyes for a long moment, and when she opens them, they're slitted angrily.

"You weren't?" she challenges. "Because it seems like I’m not the only one who’s kissed other people."

I don't say anything and after a minute, she blows out a breath.

"I should have been there. After you were rescued. In Thirteen." She scuffs her toe in the dirt. "And I'll never forgive myself for that. Just like I'll never forgive myself for what happened to Prim." Her voice quavers, but she quickly steadies it. "Or Finnick. Or Cinna. Boggs. Jackson. Rue . . . any of them."

Silent as tears streak down the edge of her nose, she lifts her chin and swipes them away.

"But I won't apologize for the rest of it. And the Peeta I know wouldn't have asked me to."

It's the punch in the gut I never see coming, that I'm not only wrong for being unable to let go of feeling this way, but somehow . . . _defective_. Not quite as good, as understanding or as reasonable as the _real_ Peeta Mellark. The violent, unpredictable mutt version the Capitol ruined with damaging doses of venom and sent back in his place.

"You ready to start walking again?" I mumble, not looking at her.

Katniss lets out a huff, shakes her head and stands. "Sure," she answers curtly, brushing past me without another word.

 

* * *

 

He doesn't come the following afternoon. Or the one after that, the one where I'm sedated and forced to watch footage of the mutt from the first arena.

But somehow I know he's still there. Watching. Monitoring, like any good mentor would. If only for _her_.

And on the third day, after the guards have escorted me to the shower room to get cleaned up and taken me out of the restraints for the hour or so I'm allowed in the mornings, I stare at the angry red line on my wrist where the cuff has dug in and remember a heavy gold band with a pattern of flames.

They warn me over the intercom as I start to approach the glass, the voice falling silent seconds later when the door to my room slides open. My fists continue to rain down, slamming into the mirrored surface I know they're hiding him behind again and again until the guards seize my arms, one of the nurses slipping the needle into my neck that causes me to sag limply to the floor.

* * *

When I wake up, once again restricted by four-point restraints as punishment for my little _outburst_ , he's standing at the end of the bed.

"Fuck off," I mumble under my breath.

"Nice to see you, too." Rocking back on his heels, he stuffs both hands in his pockets and glances towards the one-way glass. "Look, boy, they're only giving me a few minutes--"

I snort.

Haymitch just stares, unsmiling, and it’s then that I notice a series of long scratches that stretch the length of his cheek. "You want answers or you just in the mood to yell some more?"

Clenching my fingers and breathing through my nose for a minute, I finally swallow. "Why didn't you tell me the truth? About the rebellion."

He sighs. "It was a hard decision."

"You _lied_ to me."

"We thought it was better that you didn't know," he counters in a tired voice. "That maybe--"

"What, they'd go easy on me?" I all but sneer. "Bullshit. Tell me the fucking truth."

He falls silent.

I roll my eyes, nodding to the marks on his face. “You fall asleep on top of your knife again or something?”

He regards me evenly.

"We knew there was no way to guarantee either you or the girl would put the rebellion over saving the other." Shaking his head when my lip curls, he continues. "Not if you were forced to choose. You would have used any information you had to your advantage to save her. And she would've done the same for--"

"You’re a fucking _liar._ " Rearing up off the bed, I struggle to get at him but fail to move more than a few inches. "She's fooled you. _Everyone_. She tried to _kill_ me--"

He swears under his breath. "No, she _didn't_ , boy--"

_"Haymitch--"_

But I never get to finish the thought.

 

* * *

 

"So, what are we watching today?" On edge, I let my foot jiggle for a minute.

Turning from the video screen, Dr. Aurelius raises an eyebrow. "Did you have a particular request?"

"Something with Katniss."

He finishes cueing up the recording. "Then you'll be pleased to hear she's in this clip. And it's one I don't believe you've seen before."

A little curious despite his obvious attempt at evasion, I pick at the edge of the bandage where it wraps around the back of my hand. "Where is she?"

He takes a seat behind his desk and picks up the remote and his clipboard. "Are you ready to begin?"

Annoyed, I slouch in the chair. "Seriously. What's our fucking topic already?"

Dr. Aurelius glances over. "Home."

The screen comes on and I inhale sharply. She's wearing the nondescript gray uniform of Thirteen, one that does little to hide how thin she is, and despite her prep team's obvious efforts, I can see the fatigue in her eyes and the jitteriness in her hands as she squeezes them together in her lap.

"How did you meet Peeta?"

Cressida's voice from off-camera makes both of us flinch, and I swallow as I watch her nervously tuck a long, dark strand of hair behind one ear. She draws a breath.

"When I met Peeta, I was eleven years old. And I was almost dead."

Katniss blinks, never looking away as she recounts the story of trying to find food in the garbage bins, of my mother chasing her from the bakery door.

"Peeta . . . saw what happened." Here she briefly pauses, voice wavering slightly. "Took a beating to bring me the loaves of bread that saved our lives. Mine. My mother's. Prim's."

She exhales and stares up at the sky, chewing her bottom lip in a nervous habit so achingly familiar that I suddenly want to pound like a battering ram through every door, wall and window in the Capitol until I find the one they're hiding her behind, pull her safe into my arms and cradle her close where no one will ever hurt either of us again.

"We had never even spoken," she says, almost to herself, and then studies her toes. "The first time I ever talked to Peeta was on the train to the Games."

"But he was already in love with you," Cressida interrupts softly.

And as I watch Katniss bite her lip again, see the faint tinge of pink that colors her cheeks sparingly as a single drop of rosewater in a swirling bowl of icing, I hear Dr. Aurelius shift in his chair, and know that he's quietly taking in my every reaction.

"I guess so," Katniss answers, mouth curving in the barest trace of a smile.

And for the first time, as I watch flashes of affection, shyness, regret and sorrow flit across her features, I see what almost looks like a measure of longing in her eyes. There's another pause.

"How are you doing with the separation?"

I swallow, not breathing.

"Not well." Katniss hesitates. "I know at any moment Snow could kill him. Especially since he warned Thirteen about the bombing."

She falters, and that's when Dr. Aurelius stops the tape. Frowning, I open my mouth to demand he restart it, but he holds up a hand.

"There's not much more to this clip, most of it directed at Snow, but I'll be happy to send it to your viewer later this afternoon."

Fidgeting for a moment, I finally nod, glancing at the time on his wall panel before turning to stare down at my hands.

Since it's been over a month since I tried to destroy anything in my room, he allows me to keep a small portable screen similar to the one we use here in my nightstand drawer. It can only be activated for an hour during each twenty-four hour cycle, so I can't sit up in my room and do nothing but watch videos of Katniss all day, but once we've watched a tape together in therapy and he feels I'm stable enough to have access to it on my own, it gets added to the library in case I want to review it later and solidify the memory.

The silence stretches out, doing little to calm the nervous gnawing in my stomach.

Dr. Aurelius tilts his head. "What are you thinking about?"

Shrugging, I rub the gauze covering the scar on my hand. "I miss her."

He nods. "Katniss spoke that day of how difficult the separation had been for her. This isn't precisely the same, of course, but certainly it’s been no easier on you."

I close my eyes, preparing to ask him for the thousandth time where the fuck she is when he clears his throat.

"You know, it's interesting to listen to Katniss' version of events from that day after having only ever heard yours."

I make a face, not looking up at him, but we’ve got more than half the hour left and not much else to talk about. And so after a minute, I take the bait.

"Why?"

"They're quite different."

I pick at the bandage again. "No, they aren't."

He raises an eyebrow. "On the contrary. In Katniss' telling, you saved her life. And her mother's and sister's. When you were no more than a child yourself and when the two of you had never even spoken."

I don't say anything and after a moment, he goes on.

"What sort of impression do you think that had to make on her, when by her own account, she was _almost dead_ and not a single other soul would help her or her mother or her sister . . . no one from the Seam where she’d lived her whole life, no one who was friends with her father . . . _no one_ in _all_ of District Twelve . . . no one but you?"

Shrugging, I stare out the window.

"I don't know."

His reply is soft. “I think you do.”

I still don’t answer.

Dr. Aurelius studies me in silence. "I think the most charitable statement I've ever gotten from you regarding your own actions was, _'I wanted to protect her.'_ "

I swallow and pick up the two weighted balls he keeps on the edge of his desk for people to fiddle around with when they're feeling fidgety. When he first pointed them out, I laughed and told him this was the kind of dumb idea they could only come up with in the Capitol, to which he'd merely smiled and deemed them the lesser of two evils.

He glances at his notes. "In your first Games, Katniss said to you, _'It's like the bread. How I never seem to get over owing you for that.'_ " He pauses, peering at me carefully. "Do you remember what you said after that?"

_The bread? What? From when we were kids? I think we can let that go._

"No," I lie, but without much effort at it, and Dr. Aurelius doesn't press me to admit it, just steeples his fingers and considers me thoughtfully.

"I think you like to play down the importance of what you did that day,” he says at last. “Twist it around and make it all about Katniss."

I snort, rolling the balls from one hand to the other. "It's _always_ all about Katniss.”

The room goes very quiet again.

"Go on," he urges softly. But I don't, and after a minute he leans forward. "I have to wonder, Peeta, how long you've been _this_ focused on her.”

I mull over it, poking at the edge of his desk.

“And I think it might also be worthwhile to examine what you might be getting out of that arrangement."

This time, I laugh bitterly. "That one’s easy. Not much."

"From a purely psychological standpoint, if that were true, you wouldn't persist in the behavior."

Exhaling, I drop the balls in their velvet cushioned box and scrub a hand through my hair. "I don't know. This is humiliating."

"How so?"

Knee bouncing a little, I stare out the window, the answer slow in forming.

"I've liked her from the first moment I knew you _could_ like a girl. You know, like that." Pausing, I wipe my palms on my pants. "I just wanted her to . . . you know, like me back."

"Yes." He nods slowly. "And I suspect that tied in with those first natural, curious feelings you were experiencing along with all the other boys your age, Katniss liking you back may have also come to represent something deeper, a longing for the affection and attention you weren't necessarily getting at home.”

I pick at a piece of string from the edge of the bandage.

“Something that made it difficult to detach yourself emotionally from her when the relationship became unhealthy for both of you after the first Games, but rather left you feeling a sort of desperation to get close to her in any way that you could."

Dr. Aurelius tilts his head. "Does any of that feel right?"

I shrug at first, finally nodding.

"Which parts?"

Sighing, I lower my head, too embarrassed to tell him _most of it_.

He watches me for a moment.

"I never met the 'old' Peeta Mellark, as you like to call him, but I suspect much of the behavior you attribute to this _perfect_ version of yourself wasn't particularly healthy at all. Good relationships don't center around one person--they're an equal partnership where both people feel satisfied and fulfilled."

I grunt, poking at the fancy trim on the edge of his desk again. "Everyone sure seemed to like him a lot better than they like me."

Nodding, Dr. Aurelius leans forward.

"And I have no doubt that approval served as a considerable payoff. At least in the short term. But real people have emotions other than _good, happy, selfless, and brave_ as you put it in our session a few weeks ago. And you've shared with me that you can remember feeling scared, angry, hurt and a host of other things the 'old' Peeta was very good at concealing much of the time, from the cameras and from those closest to him . . . at least until he reached the boiling point and lashed out in frustration."

He waits until I look up to continue.

"When I watch the young man who sat beside Katniss on the beach and told her, _'No one really needs me,'_ I see someone who's convinced himself what he's saying is the truth . . . to the point he's started rewriting events in his mind."

"Great," I mutter.

Dr. Aurelius faintly smiles.

"In contrast, the Peeta Mellark who's been under treatment here for the past seven weeks has been making good strides towards confronting things honestly. Whether that's always likeable or not." He meets my eyes. "And on that note, I’m going to ask you to do something for me."

I frown for all of two seconds before immediately understanding. “No.”

"You don’t even know what I was going to ask," he counters calmly.

I make a sound under my breath. "Why don't _you_ bake some fucking cookies if you're that excited about it?"

Ignoring me, he continues. “I know this idea is uncomfortable for you--”

“It’s not _uncomfortable_ for me.” He raises an eyebrow and I turn to stare out the window. "What time is Haymitch getting here?"

"Soon. I asked him to arrive a few minutes early because I needed to speak to him about something." Dr. Aurelius watches me intently. "Have you thought about what you want to say to him?"

Laughing darkly, I shake my head.

"We've pretty much got this conversation down by now." I blow out a breath. "Look, I'm fine. Can we just go down there and get this over with already?"

The visiting room he escorts me to is pretty much like all the others. Medium-sized. Couches and a few chairs. A television in one corner that I'm sure has already been disabled on my behalf, even if there weren't also cameras mounted up near the ceiling to make sure I behave myself. And just like both times Annie came to visit, a nurse stationed right outside the door.

"I'll be back in a moment." Tucking his clipboard under one arm, Dr. Aurelius pauses. "Peeta?"

Arms folded, I stop pacing long enough to frown up at him. "What?"

He nods gently and reaches for the door.

"Try to relax."

And then he's gone. After a few minutes, my leg starts getting sore, so I pick one of the sofas and sink down into it. And that's how they find me when the door slides open.

I count to three before looking up. Haymitch is standing just outside the circle of chairs. Scoffing, I shake my head. And after a few tense seconds, he takes a seat on the couch across from mine.

I swallow, glancing over to where Dr. Aurelius waits by the door.

"It's okay. I'm fine."

He still makes no move to go. Annoyed, I glower at him.

"I'm _fine_."

And finally, he leaves us alone.

Picking at the bandage on the back of my hand, I keep my voice neutral. "Keeping pretty busy?"

But Haymitch shakes his head, seeing straight through me as usual. "Boy, you know damn well we can't talk about the girl--"

"Course not." I roll my eyes. "And it's not like we don’t both know _I'm_ not the one you'd prefer to be sitting here with either. Making your little plans, just the two of you . . ."

He grunts and rubs a hand over his face, fingertips absently tracing one of the long, thin scars running underneath his eye. I frown, studying him.

"Look, boy," he says at last. "I know you're pissed at me. And you have a right to be. But I had no idea what she was planning that day we walked in there to the meeting with Coin."

I laugh sharply, but there’s no humor to it. "You really expect me to believe that?"

He shrugs. "Don't care if you believe it or not. But it's the truth."

"It's what you _do_." Picking at the bandage again, I ball tiny threads of gauze into knots. "You team up with her. Choose sides . . . _I'm with the Mockingjay?_ Yeah, that pretty much sums it up."

Haymitch stares at me for a long moment and leans forward, saying slowly, "Peeta, I had no idea what she was planning to do."

I shake my head, struggling to stay calm. "Don't you see? That's almost _worse._ "

But somewhere in the back of my mind, another voice prods gently, and I know even as I frown and try to turn away from it that _this_ isn't truly what's upsetting me. That this betrayal stings like lonely late summer nights sitting out on his back porch, not wanting to be alone, my family still in town because the idea of moving out to the Victor's Village was _too inconvenient_ given how early they had to open the bakery, Katniss spending all her free time with her sister or Gale, scowling at me on the rare occasion our paths crossed like I was something unpleasant she’d neglected to wipe from the bottom of her boot. That it wounds like autumn evenings learning to play chess by the fire, Haymitch seeming to understand when I showed up day after day on his doorstep with an empty expression and a loaf of bread in hand that we were no different and maybe never had been. That no one wanted either of us.

"I think you should go."

He doesn't try to argue. And it's only after he stands and is almost to the door that I draw a reluctant breath.

"Haymitch?" Pausing while he turns to face me, I gesture to the scars on his cheekbone. "What really happened to your eye?"

Nodding, he looks down.

"Sweetheart," he says without smiling. "The moment she found out we left you in the arena."

And goes.

 

* * *

 

Part 1 of 3 . . .

Comments are like a day at the lake with Peeta, with extra attentive swimming lessons. Would love to hear what you thought :)


	6. The Final Defense of the Dying

_“Give my mother my best.”_

 

* * *

 

Of all the lessons my father silently passed along to us over the years, most imparted while standing at the prep counter in back, helping Rye decorate trays of gingerbread cookies or pretending not to see my dark pangs of jealousy as I glazed cinnamon rolls in thin, even lines as instructed, sulking over not being allowed to actually _frost_ like gloating, older Bannock, two things stand out above the rest.

That telling the truth wasn't always or even _usually_ the wisest course of action. And that, in our house at least, he might have been the largest and the strongest, the one who caused the old wooden stairs to creak and groan in the early hours of the morning when he clomped down to the bakery to light the ovens and who lifted hundred pound sacks of flour onto his shoulders easily as he used to swing me up into his arms after school, but _no one_ , including him, was big or strong enough to stand up to _her_ when she got that dark look in her eyes.

Two things I can’t help but see as somehow relevant as I trail along behind a silent, furious Katniss Everdeen.

Slowing, I reach around to dig the water bottle from my pack. "You thirsty?"

She reluctantly turns, hooking her thumbs in her front pockets while I take a long gulp. I offer her the water, but she just scuffs her foot. And shrugs.

Rolling my eyes, I cap the bottle. “That’s not an answer.”

Scowling, she hunches her shoulders and stalks off without a word. I stuff the bottle back in my pack, hurrying after her before she can get too far ahead.

We still aren’t speaking by the time we near the Meadow, my mood souring at the sight of the dark oval of upturned earth at its center, intruding upon the sea of feathery yellow-tipped grasses and late summer wildflowers like some sort of ugly, raised scab.

We reach the fence and Katniss kneels down to lift it so I can crawl underneath. But this time, I don’t miss the impatient sound she makes in the back of her throat, what had seemed like a nice gesture earlier in the day quickly souring in my stomach at the thought she probably never had to do it for _Gale_. I shove the pack through with more force than necessary, resisting the urge to make a snide comment about it once I’m on the other side. _Barely_.

Katniss slithers under the fence with the lean grace of an alley cat, the arch in her back and way she wriggles her hips to clear the wire sending an unwanted jolt straight to my groin. I look away, trying not to imagine what it would feel like if she squirmed like that while sitting in my lap, pressed up against me so there was no space at all between us. Ignoring the hand I offer to help her up, Katniss brushes off her pants and stalks past me into the lead. I frown, but hurry to catch up.

We’re about halfway back to the Victor's Village when I finally blow out a breath, sick of sneaking pathetic looks in her direction.

"Can we just talk about it already?"

She doesn’t answer. I turn to stare, watching her wipe a bead of sweat off her forehead as if I don’t even exist.

 _“Katniss,”_ I repeat, voice hardening.

Face blank, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

“So what, you’re just ignoring me now?” I demand, staring until she slows and then reluctantly stops.

The hand not holding her bow balls into a fist as she turns to face me, all but snarling, “ _What_ do you _want_?”

I limp the last few feet over to her, refusing to back down even when she glares up at me, our noses inches apart.

"To know why you're still acting so pissed at me, for starters. I already told you I was sorry for bringing up Gale."

Katniss lets out a low huff, looking like she wants to run an arrow through me right there on the spot. I don’t move, close enough to feel the heat of her breath on my lips and smell the scent of her skin. She swallows, eyes briefly dropping to my mouth. And then inhales sharply.

“I’m through talking about this.”

"Katniss,"I bark, louder this time, and limp after her, incensed that she won't stop and fucking look at me.

Making sure to step on a few extra twigs and leaves just to annoy her, I glean a sense of dark satisfaction from the way her shoulders hunch in response. We’re nearly home when I call out again.

"Is this about the kiss?"

She freezes like a cornered animal, cheeks flooding with twin bursts of color. Opening her mouth like she wants to say something, she falters when I raise an eyebrow, expression hardening.

"Keep your voice down,” she snaps.

I lean a little closer. "Change your mind already, huh?"

Her blush deepens, and with it, a scowl that could scare off every bear for miles.

"Shut up."

Laughing dryly, I brush past her. "You're _unbelievable_ sometimes--"

But she grabs my arm, forces me to stop. "What is that supposed to mean?"

I stare down at her, trying to keep my gaze from dipping to the trembling edge of her mouth.

"That this is what you do. Act like you’re in. And then as soon as I start believing it--”

I don’t finish. Katniss toes at the dirt, mouth twisting uncomfortably.

"This is stupid. We're both tired and crabby.” She hooks a thumb under the strap of her game bag. "What time do you think you'll be over later?"

I frown, about to counter that it _isn’t_ stupid and I don’t _care_ if we’re tired when I catch the nervous way she’s fiddling with the strap of her bag. And something about it just pisses me off more. Because _this_ is what Katniss Everdeen does, her weapon of choice far more subtle than a rolling pin, the long wooden peel from the ovens, or even the unforgiving flat of her hand. She shuts people out, withdraws affection. Flees to the safety of a far off district and runs back into her tent. Goes silent, just like the birds, the injuries she inflicts slowly meted out like the cold chill of a never-ending winter. The refusal to acknowledge, much less love, a silent, nagging reminder there was almost no one who truly mattered to her, not really, not the way she did to them, that she could excise us all from her life easily as plucking an unwanted leaf from her hair.

Staring her down, I shake my head. "It's my night. We slept over at your house yesterday."

Not even trying to mask her annoyance, Katniss folds her arms. "Don't you have a call with Dr. Aurelius at five?

“Yeah.” I shrug, but don’t back down. "So?"

She scoffs. "What, were you planning to put him on hold every time you need to check on something in the oven? Let’s just switch nights."

We both flinch when a screen door claps shut, glancing over to see Haymitch sink lazily into one of the large wooden chairs on his front porch and prop his pale bare feet on the railing. He smirks and lifts an uncorked bottle in greeting. Frowning, I turn to Katniss, knowing she remembers as well as I do that it’s one of Sae’s days tomorrow because it’s an argument we’ve had no shortage of times before.

That even though Dr. Aurelius and Haymitch are both aware we’ve been sharing a bed for months, and I'm pretty sure Sae knows more than she lets on, Katniss still starts fidgeting on the rare occasion I haven't left for my house by a quarter to seven, all but shoving me down the stairs and out the door before we can get, in her words, _caught_.

The first few times I laughed about it, even teased her for the way her cheeks were turning pink while dodging the fat feather pillow she lobbed my way from the bed. Rolled my eyes at how pure she was, talking about it like we were sneaking our way back from a quick suck or fuck at the slag heap. And for a while after _that_ I tried not to care whenever I would ask if she wanted to help me bake blueberry muffins later or go for a walk if the weather was nice and would catch her eyes darting towards the digital clock that had replaced the large golden ticking one I still couldn't stand to keep anywhere in the house.

But now it's hard not to feel put out while stumbling across the lawn still pulling on yesterday's clothes, often to whatever joke Haymitch has managed to work up at my expense, and only to quickly shower and hurry back to rap on her door half an hour later with a loaf of bread. Like I _hadn't_ spent the entire night snuggled up with her while she snored louder than a pack of wild dogs and thrashed in her sleep, or woken up to her teasing I'd drooled all over her pillow. Like I hadn't tickled her until she smiled after the nightmares and let her twine nervous fingers through my hair when she was too scared to go back to sleep, whispering it was soft as corn silk. Like _none of it_ counted as soon as someone else might see.

Scuffing my shoe in the dirt a couple times, I blow out a breath.

"Fine," I grumble, in a tone that clearly indicates that it _isn't_. Not by a long shot.

But her penchant for missing the blatantly obvious proves itself yet again, or maybe she just secretly likes having that as an excuse to do whatever the hell she wants, because without another look at me, she turns and goes.

I wait until her front door slams shut to reluctantly lift my head. Haymitch is still watching from his front porch, expression mildly amused.

"Want some advice?"

Shifting the backpack, I stalk off in the direction of my house.

"No."

 

* * *

 

"It's not going to work," I snap at Haymitch the moment he comes through the door, sitting up in bed as far as the restraints will allow.

"I'm guessing this'll be one of our short visits," he mutters, so quietly I almost miss it. But when I glare, he just smirks and comes over to the side of my bed. "What's not going to work?"

"The tapes. The morphling." Lip curling in disgust, I practically sneer at him, "I know she's a fucking mutt."

Haymitch sighs and runs a hand over his face. "So which one did they show you today?"

Part of me wants to tell him to go fuck himself, but since he's one of the few people who actually comes to see me, I finally give in and answer.

"We were . . . on a stage." The words stick in my throat like they've been coated in sand. "The mutt was . . ."

I shudder in revulsion as the image comes back, stomach twitching and jerking uncomfortably at the memory of arms twining around my neck, her mouth fitted to mine for what seemed like _forever_.

Haymitch remains strangely silent. And then offers only a single grunt.

"Huh."

I glower at him. "It was . . . _wrong_. Disgusting."

He raises an eyebrow. And with that silent question, my face grows warm even as I silently beg it not to, just as I hadn't wanted my heartrate to increase or mouth to go dry while they forced me to watch the mutt putting on the act they programmed her for, sticking her tongue in my mouth over and over again in front of all of Panem.

Frowning, I shake my head. "It _was_."

Haymitch shrugs. "Whatever you say, boy."

"Get out," I seethe, refusing to look up again until I hear the door slide shut.

 

* * *

 

"And what about this one?"

I glance up from my tea. We're seated at the chairs on the other side of his office today, right next to the windows, my sketchbook spread out over the low table between us.

"Um." Frowning, I set the cup down and peer over at the open page. "That was the night Katniss fell and hurt her foot. After dinner."

"May I?" Waiting for my nod, Dr. Aurelius rotates the sketch slightly and leans closer for a better look. "The detail in this is extraordinary."

I shrug, staring out at the mountains in the distance. There's something relaxing about being so close to the windows. Even though they don't open and the glass is a foot thick, which I guess is sort of a necessity on this floor, it's the closest thing to being able to taste the fresh air.

"I spent a lot of time there that winter." Sinking back in the chair, I pick at the bandage on my hand.

"With Katniss' family."

He steeples his fingers and I roll my eyes even though I’m not really annoyed. _Yet_. It's one of those offhand remarks he loves to throw out, something halfway between a question and a statement, seemingly designed to nag at me like a deeply imbedded thorn I just can’t dig out until I’m close to punching through the wall.

"She fractured her heel, so she couldn't really go anywhere."

Dr. Aurelius writes for a moment. "What sorts of things would you do while you were there?"

I let my head rest against the cushioned chair back, thinking about it. "I'd . . . bring her cheese buns. They’re her favorite. We had a . . . book we would work on together. It belonged to her family. Different plants. I would draw the pictures for her."

"And when you recall those memories, do they have any specific emotion attached?"

It's not an unusual question, particularly when I'm just telling him something for the first time, because more often than not, they _don’t_ until I’ve had a few weeks to mull them over. But as I stare down at the sketch of Prim sitting at Katniss' feet by the hearth, at Mrs. Everdeen carefully wrapping her ankle, something surfaces, and it’s hard to name exactly _what_ that something is.

"I . . . don't know." I start to mess with the bandage again, and Dr. Aurelius reaches down to the table between us, tossing me a small cloth sack filled with rice instead. I make a face, but pick it up when it lands in my lap. "As far as I remember, they seem mostly . . . pleasant. I think Katniss would watch me sketch sometimes, too."

He nods. "When you spent time there, was it usually just you and Katniss, or did you interact with her mother and sister like in this sketch?"

“Some of both, I guess.” Tossing the rice sack back and forth from hand to hand, I shrug. "And--"

He waits for me to go on. I draw a breath, foot tapping nervously.

Dr. Aurelius tilts his head.

"And--?"

"And Haymitch," I finish quietly, flipping the sack up in the air again.

There's a pause, one that goes on long enough I can tell I'm not getting another pass on talking about the state of things with my former mentor. Dr. Aurelius jots something down, and then leans forward.

"How would you characterize the time you spent with Haymitch back in District Twelve?"

I snort. "How well do you know Haymitch?"

He raises an eyebrow. "I'm sure not nearly as well as you."

Shaking my head, I turn to stare out at the fat white flakes of snow falling on the Capitol streets below us. The view from his office faces towards the City Circle, while my window looks out over the mountains, and from here I can see the old tribute Training Center off in the distance.

"Do you know what they're doing with it?" I interrupt, gesturing. “The Training Center?”

Dr. Aurelius is silent for a moment. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. I thought maybe it could be useful to go there. See if I remember anything. Since things are going so well with mytime in the kitchen."

He doesn’t react to the sarcasm in my tone. I’d grudgingly conceded to _therapeutic baking sessions_ three evenings a week. Because they require my leaving the psych floor for an extended period, and since he can’t exactly pull one of the nurses off their shift for hours at a time every other day while I try to remember how not to fuck up a batch of cupcakes, I have to wear a tracking device cuffed to my ankle so they can monitor my location from upstairs. Someone from the psych floor still escorts me down, along with a trainee nurse who stays in the kitchen with me while I bake, presumably having been charged with the task of holding the sedatives and making sure I don’t try to off myself or get information about Katniss from any of the Avoxes on staff, though I still haven’t asked.

Dr. Aurelius considers it.

"I'll be happy to make some inquiries for you." He waits, and when I stare blankly, patiently repeats his last question. "What was your relationship like with Haymitch?"

I balance the rice sack on one finger, feeling it grow heavy as grains slowly spill off to either side.

"About like you'd expect,” I answer dryly. “We'd play chess one night and when I stopped by to bring him bread the next morning, I'd find him passed out in a puddle of his own vomit."

He nods, taking notes as he listens. "Were you able to talk to him about your experience in the first Games at all?"

Shrugging, I toss the rice sack on the table. "I don't know. I tried, sometimes."

He waits while I rub a hand over my face. My eyebrows have finally started growing back in and they itch like fuck.

"He's like Katniss, you know? Tries not to think about what happened in there and gets mad most of the time when you bring it up."

"Yes," Dr. Aurelius says quietly. "That's a keen emotional observation to make." He shifts in the chair, studying the sketch of Katniss, Prim and Mrs. Everdeen. "Peeta, how would you describe the mood in this picture?"

I blow out a breath and drop my head. Part of me knows this is the point where he usually starts prodding into places I don't want him to go, but we've made it through close to half the session without me telling him to go fuck himself, which has to be a new record, and for whatever reason, I’m not in any hurry to ruin things today.

"Uh . . . I don't know. Nice?" I stare down at Prim, who's leaning her head on Katniss' leg while her older sister combs fingers through her hair. "Warm, I guess. They seem cozy."

Dr. Aurelius flips a page in his notes. "Was Haymitch there that night?"

"Yes."

He peers down at the sketch again. "Where?"

I pick up my tea and take another sip. "He and I were still at the table.”

“Why?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. The others ate faster? Or maybe we were hungrier, I guess."

“And you didn’t choose that moment for any specific reason?”

“No,” I answer carefully. “Why?”

“Because I have to wonder why, if the five of you were actively engaged at other points throughout the evening, you chose to sketch Katniss with her mother and sister. Together, in a memory you clearly managed to retain in a great deal of detail--warm, and cozy--but with you and Haymitch excluded from the rest."

Rolling my eyes, I set the tea back down. Dr. Aurelius waits.

"It wasn't like that."

He adjusts his glasses and crosses one leg over the other. "Tell me what it was like."

We sit there in silence for a full minute before he tries again.

"Therapy through alternative mediums such as art or music can sometimes be extraordinarily effective because it allows emotions to be accessed and expressed through subconscious pathways. In plainer terms, to work around the mental blocks we all erect in order to protect ourselves from further trauma."

I make a face. “What, you’re saying I could have drawn it that way because I was secretly feeling excluded?”

Dr. Aurelius nods. “Essentially, yes.”

“That’s stupid.” I stare out his window.

He ignores the comment. “And I have to wonder if this connects back to something we’ve talked about before . . . that you’ve spent a great deal of your life feeling abandoned in one sense or another.”

"They're her family." I poke at the padded arm rest.

He watches while I swivel back and forth aimlessly in the chair. "Peeta, how often did you have contact with your family during this time period?"

I shrug and pick at the bandage covering the scar from Katniss' teeth. "I'd stop by the bakery a couple times a week to check on them. And sometimes I went over to their place for dinner."

"How often?"

Not looking at him, I try to think back. "Maybe once or twice a month?" I pause. "Sometimes more. It just kind of . . . depended."

Dr. Aurelius stops writing to glance up. "Depended on what?"

The grunt escapes before I can stop it. And as the room goes very quiet, I know he doesn't miss it either.

 _On whether my father had permission to issue the invitation. On whether I'd managed to get any sleep the previous night and had the mental stamina to remain silent once she started in on me. The first time. The fifth. The tenth. On whether the previous dinner had ended in shouting before my father could even bring out whatever I'd brought over for dessert_.

"On how busy things were at the bakery," I finally say, fidgeting a little.

He finishes his notes and flips to a fresh page. "Did they come over to your house?"

I swallow, throat suddenly dry.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't know." He waits for me to go on, but I just pick at my hand again. "Can we talk about Katniss now?"

But Dr. Aurelius shakes his head, voice gentle. "Why didn't they come to your house, Peeta?"

I stare down at the empty teacup at the edge of the table, trying to pick out all the flecks of ocher and bronze against the stark white china.

"They . . . it was too hard with the schedule they had to keep at the bakery."

"To come out and see you for an hour or two?" He picks up his clipboard again. "I'm aware people in Twelve don't typically travel by car . . . how far did you say your house was located from town?"

"Half a mile." Sighing, I close my eyes. "Look, this doesn't have _anything_ to do with--"

"Did you ever ask them?"

Messing with the bandage, I frown. "Ask them _what?_ "

When I look up, he's regarding me with an unreadable expression. "To come over."

"I . . . uh." I swallow again. "I don't remember, exactly. Most people have no idea how much time it takes to run a bakery. Even with all of us working."

He starts to write. I sink back in the chair and scrub a hand over my face, startled when he speaks.

"Am I remembering correctly that you and your brothers wrestled in school?"

“Yeah.” Exhaling, I sit back up. "So?"

"So, you probably practiced, what . . . an hour or two after classes got out? Competed in matches? Occasionally had some free time to spend with your friends on the weekend?"

I don't answer, but it isn’t hard to guess where he's going with this. Dr. Aurelius tilts his head.

"You managed to walk half a mile and back multiple times a week and in all sorts of weather conditions _despite_ your recent adjustment to a prosthetic limb, and suddenly _no one_ could be spared from the bakery for an hour or two to come and visit you?" He waits until I look up. "That would have hurt my feelings _immensely_."

I just shrug.

"And I'm wondering how early on you started accepting the idea you weren't allowed to feel that way." He pauses, studying my face even as I pick, suddenly fidgety, at a stray thread on my hospital-issue pants. "From where did that message originate?"

Glancing at the clock, I wipe my palms on my legs. "How much longer do we have?"

“A few more minutes,” he says patiently. “Try to stay with me. When do you first recall feeling you weren’t allowed to speak up when something was upsetting you?”

The laugh escapes before I can stop it, dark and caustic. Dr. Aurelius doesn’t react, but I can feel him silently watching as I hunch lower in the chair.

“I don’t know.”

“No, I don’t believe that.”

I shrug again. Because really, what is there to say? What sort of answer can you give to explain something you’ve understood almost as long as you’ve been able to breathe, longer than you remember loving every color of the sunset, and as long as you’ve known not to touch a pan that’s just come out of a hot oven, that to talk back only invites more pain?

I pick at my hand. “She thought Katniss would win.”

 _“She.”_ He inclines his head. “Your mother?”

I nod silently.

“She told you?”

Grunting, I slowly unravel the edge of the bandage. “She’s a survivor, that one.” Dr. Aurelius waits for me to continue, and I let my head slump back. “All the memory loss, and I had to keep _that_.”

He sets the clipboard aside. “Peeta, are you aware this is only the second time you’ve ever brought her up in one of our sessions?”

I groan and rake a hand through my hair.

“Did they have some class you had to take on coming up with annoying and overly profound things to say, because _really_ , you--”

“Peeta,” he interjects quietly, and I shake my head, staring out his window.

“I talk about her.”

"No, you don't."

I fidget in place, unwilling to meet his eye.

“Occasionally you mention one of your brothers. Less often, something your father did or said. Never her.” He waits, the question softer this time. “When was the first time you recall feeling you couldn’t speak up?”

Exhaling, I tap my foot for a few seconds. “Sometimes it felt like I was the only one who _would_.” I poke at the edge of the table. “Not always, but . . . sometimes I think it’s why she--”

The words hardly ones I’ve never considered before, I’m still caught off guard by the way my nose starts to burn, the sting quickly spreading to my eyes. Dr. Aurelius gives me a minute when I blink and look away.

“Why she . . .?” he prompts gently, moving the box of tissues so they’re more easily within my reach.

I blow out another breath, all but mumbling the words. “Didn’t like me.”

“Yes.” The room grows uncomfortably quiet. “And it hurt very much not to feel liked.”

I swallow, but don’t answer.

“What do you know about her childhood?”

I stare out the window again. “Her parents used to own the dressmaker’s shop in town. She was the youngest, so the business went to her sister.”

He nods. “Do you know what her relationship with them was like?”

“Not really,” I admit, picking at my fingernails. “They weren’t ever around.”

“Ever?” he clarifies, raising an eyebrow. “What about your father’s parents?”

Frowning, I stare out the window. “I remember them. But only a little. They died when I was young.”

Dr. Aurelius writes for so long I start feeling edgy, and I’m just about to ask him about Katniss when he sets the pen down. “From how early on do you remember your mother hitting you?”

I mess with the bandage again. “I don’t remember a time when she didn’t.”

He makes a note. “And your earliest memory?”

“I was . . . about four or five, I think. I’m not sure.”

He gives me a minute. “Do you remember anything specific about that day?”

“No.”

“How often would it happen?”

“You mean actually hit one of us? A couple times a month. But--”

Dr. Aurelius tilts his head. “But . . .?”

Leaning over to retrieve the rice sack, I fiddle with it. “But . . . sometimes _that_ wasn’t even the worst part, you know? The stuff she’d say--”

The room grows quiet and after a beat, he asks, “What would she say?”

I let the rice shift from hand to hand.

Dr. Aurelius leans back in his chair. “You know, Peeta, it’s often the things we experience growing up that are the most difficult to come to terms with, even when later events are far more traumatic. The earliest hurts feel the most personal.”

_Weak. Stupid. Soft. Good for nothing. Worthless creature._

He tries again. “What would typically set her off?”

I shake my head, the answer one even _I_ didn’t have the words to explain. Dropped pans. Cookies left in the oven too long. Responses she didn’t like. Floors that hadn’t been mopped properly. One of us taking too long while out making deliveries. Rye’s unsatisfactory answers to her accusations he was up to no good with some girl. Her constant criticism of Bannock’s inadequacies at bookkeeping, the shrill reminder she couldn’t do _everything_ a low blow considering the hours the rest of us worked. And more often than not as I got older, my inability to keep my temper in check, mouthing off or sullenly slamming trays even knowing it would earn me another smack.

“She’d . . . get angry about something.”

Dr. Aurelius sets the clipboard aside and nods for me to continue. “And then?”

I stare out at the Training Center in the distance, unable to suppress a sudden wave of loneliness.

"And then . . . after, we'd all go back to staying out of her way."

I go back to picking at the bandage, and I know it’s purposeful when he allows the silence to stretch.

“And your father?”

I stop messing with the bandage and instead resume shifting the rice sack from hand to hand. “What about him?”

There’s a long pause, and I can almost _feel_ him studying me quizzically.

“What was his reaction?”

But it turns out to be my last answer for the day. After I refuse to do much more than stare out his window and shrug, he sets his clipboard aside and announces we’ve come to the end of the session. I collect my sketchbook and follow him without a word.

We're halfway back to my room when he clears his throat.

“We addressed some difficult topics today.” He waits a minute. “I know this isn’t easy.”

Glancing at a passing nurse, I don’t respond. We reach my hallway, and he stops briefly to sign something before turning to me.

"For the next week or two my schedule is going to be busier than usual. We'll still hold our afternoon sessions as scheduled, but until further notice I won't be able to meet with you in the mornings."

I frown, considering what he’s said. "Why?"

"It’s nothing of concern. However, if you'd like to still have a second session each day in the interim, to review tapes and so forth as we’ve been doing together, Dr. Lucius said he would be happy to--"

"Dr. Lucius doesn’t like me," I interrupt.

Dr. Aurelius shakes his head. “That isn’t true. He’s a fine therapist. You haven’t given him a chance.”

I roll my eyes at the assessment, and we walk along in silence.

“I don’t _trust_ him,” I clarify after a moment. “And I can’t talk to someone I don’t trust. Not about . . . you know, stuff like this.”

He glances over, but doesn’t comment. We reach my room and he slides his keycard to unlock the door.

It’s as I’m about to go in that I notice Decima standing off to one side, silent as a shadow in the background. And for half a second as I try to puzzle out why she’s watching us, I’m unable to dismiss the nagging feeling there’s something going on.

Frowning slightly, I turn to Dr. Aurelius. But he merely nods to Decima and gestures me into my room.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Peeta."

We lock eyes for a long moment, but eventually I relent. Once inside, I stretch out on the bed, quickly growing frustrated with a rough sketch of Katniss I’ve been trying for days to get right. Tossing it aside, I hug a pillow to my chest in the place where she used to sleep and stare at the ceiling, trying and failing to put a name to a host of vague suspicions stirring in the back of my mind.

 

* * *

 

"I keep _seeing_ things. Things I'm not sure ever really happened."

Today, as a test, I've been allowed to remove the restraints while someone else is present, but I have to remain seated on the bed and Haymitch has to stay at the far end of the room. And I have no doubt that behind the one-way glass, they’ve assembled every doctor on my team, eager to take notes on the exchange.

"Might want to tell one of your shrinks." Scratching the back of his neck, Haymitch leans forward in the chair.

I scoff. "And how will that help, exactly? _They_ weren't there."

He doesn't look at me, and I watch his right hand get twitchy like he wishes he could have a drink.

"Well, boy, what do you want to know?"

"I only see flashes. But there's . . . a hallway with dark paneling. And another room with couches."

"Not very specific."

I glare and Haymitch shrugs.

"Just being honest. What you're describing could've been just about anywhere."

I pick at my nails for a minute. "Sometimes . . . I think I remember drinking warm milk. With cinnamon."

When I look up, he isn't laughing anymore. Slowly, he nods.

"You and--" Seeming to think better of what he was about to say, Haymitch clears his throat. "That was on one of the trains . . . to the Capitol . . ."

"All of it?" I interrupt, frowning.

Haymitch nods again, studying my face. "What else do you remember?"

But I don't answer, struggling to draw each breath. The image of her is hazy in my mind, blurred like a painting that has been masterfully rendered, and then violently shaken until the oils shift infinitesimally on the canvas. But despite the fog of confusion that remains, there is no mistaking our positioning, me lying awake in a bed in a dim compartment, the mutt nestled contentedly in my arms.

I shrug and refuse to say anything else. And after a while, Haymitch goes.

 

* * *

 

An hour later, I've showered and changed, and am pounding out my frustrations on a third ball of bread dough when the screen door creaks and then claps shut. I go still, barely breathing. The dough sags in my hands, hope faintly fluttering in the time it takes for Haymitch to cough and sway unsteadily into the wall.

"You here, boy?"

Letting my shoulders slump, I resume my assault on tomorrow's bread. He appears in the kitchen doorway a minute later, wearing the same shirt he’s had on for days and reeking of liquor.

I make a face. "Don't you ever bathe?"

He ignores me, as usual, meandering towards one of the chairs and pausing only to investigate the contents of the cookie jar on the counter.

"What are these?"

Not bothering to look up, I continue kneading. "Peanut butter."

"Huh." I hear the lid of the crockery being replaced, the thump of a bottle on the tabletop, and Haymitch's quiet curse when his cookie breaks into pieces as soon as he bites into it. "Shit."

Exasperated, I glare at the crumbs. "Can you use a fucking placemat?"

"Sure, Mom."

I turn back to the counter and glower at the dough. Haymitch chews while I knead, the mood in the kitchen growing steadily more uncomfortable. Finally he leans back in the chair.

"So what's got you pissed at the world?"

Shaping the dough into a loaf pan, I cover it and slide it into the icebox next to the others. He watches while I grab a soapy rag to wipe down the counters, but makes no offer to help. Not that I would have let him touch anything, his idea of passably _clean_ in a kitchen nothing short of disgusting.

"Trouble with the girl?"

Wincing as I move over to the sink, I lower my head, leg killing me. But I already took two pain tablets earlier and I can't take another one for at least an hour.

"I'm not in the mood, Haymitch," I say at last, flipping on the faucet.

He regards me silently for a moment while I start on the dishes, slate gray eyes cool and unwavering.

"Acted like a real jackass out there, you know that?"

Jaw clenched tight, I drop the rag and prop my hands on either side of the sink. "Look . . . I don't know _what_ she told you--"

"Not a damn thing," he replies with a slight shake of his head. "But don't think that means I haven't noticed the little game you two’ve been playing the past few months."

"Fuck off, Haymitch," I mutter. "This doesn't concern you."

He pushes out of the chair and comes over to stand just across from me.

"Not saying Sweetheart's innocent in the whole thing. And you've been nursing feelings for her a lot longer than anyone should've had to." He pauses for a drink, and I reluctantly shut off the water. "But you weren't around to see how bad off she really was, all those months. Likes to put on a tough act, and then goes to pieces the minute--"

I slam my fist onto the counter and he shuts up. And as I stare down at the sea of bubbles and soapy water swimming in the sink, it's hard to put a name to what pisses me off the most. That he hadn’t really come over to check on _me_ , but out of concern for _her_. That once again he's decided to take her side without even _listening_ to mine. Or that he's standing there lecturing me about Katniss like we're still in fucking Thirteen. Like he’s the mentor and I’m the deranged mutt foaming at the mouth and strapped to the bed, unable to tell truth from lie. Like I haven't got the faintest clue about her at all.

Like I’m not the one who draws her out of her nightmares with gentle whispers, and reads to her on bad days when she barely wants to move, who brings plate after plate of food, cinnamon toast and buttery eggs, ham sandwiches with goat cheese on thick, hearty bread, warm, savory soups with tomato and cream, and won't stop coaxing until she eats _something_. Who lets her lie on my chest and strokes her hair, promising all the good things that are waiting for her. Long walks through her forest. All the cheese buns she can eat. Peaceful summer nights spent rocking on the porch swing after dinner, the fireflies just starting to glitter like twinkling stars from the dark shadows under the flowering bushes. Never wavering, even as the hours pass with no response but her tears soaking silent and pathetic into my shirt.

Laughing humorlessly, I shake my head. "You're not my fucking father, all right? So just save it."

He doesn't answer for a minute, just takes another drink and turns to go.

"Suit yourself."

I'm still mad enough to punch through the wall when the front door shuts. And not much better by the time I finish getting the kitchen cleaned up and the phone starts to ring.

Throwing the dishtowel on the counter, I reluctantly answer it.

"Hello," I mumble sullenly, flopping onto the couch.

"Peeta," Dr. Aurelius says after a few seconds, tone clearly indicating he's picked up something is wrong. "How are things?"

"Not great."

He listens patiently while I take him through our progress on the book, Katniss having another nightmare, the trip to the lake, what I said about Gale and the argument that ensued, the kiss, how I pulled back at the last minute, and both Haymitch and Katniss being pissed at me.

"Have you been making an effort to talk to Katniss more openly like we discussed?"

"Yes."

"Tell me about that."

There’s a long silence on the other end of the line while I recount some of the specifics we've shared, mostly whispers traded late at night when one of us couldn't sleep, or stray memories brought up in the evenings after working on the book. And it doesn’t take long before I start to feel a little on edge. He's made no secret of the fact he doesn't think Katniss and I are ready to be sharing a bed, no matter if we can't keep our hands off each other or just want someone there to hold us when the nightmares hit, and every time I bring up one of our fights during a session, it stirs the topic back up.

There's a lengthy pause after I finish, and my stomach starts to churn uncomfortably.

"And you feel that the two of you are talking through things _honestly_?"

I roll my eyes even though he can't see. "I'm trying."

It comes out sharper than I intend. The line crackles and I rub my face while we wait for it to clear, having no way to know if they're doing more demolition work to clear the rubble in town or there's bad weather today in the Capitol.

Dr. Aurelius clears his throat. "Peeta, I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to think about your answer for a minute, rather than respond right away." He pauses. "Can you do that?"

"Sure," I mutter, sinking lower into the couch cushions.

"How did it feel when you kissed Katniss?"

"How did it _feel_ when I kissed Katniss?" I repeat. "That's uh--" I stare up at the ceiling. "I don't know. Good, I guess?"

"I suspect if that were an entirely accurate answer, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now," he counters gently.

Frustrated, I sigh. But he doesn’t say anything else, and after a moment, it starts to come back. The warmth of the sun on her cheeks. The heat of her breath mingling with mine. The taste of her lips, the sweet tartness of the blackberries and faint buttery hint of salt from the cheese buns that stirred a strange and unexpected sense of warmth. Pleasure, that her mouth tasted like something _I'd_ made for her, the silent mark of approval more wanted than she could ever know, and following close on its heels, the desperate, volatile need for possession, to mark her as mine as plainly as she had me.

And in the seconds that followed, shame and panic.

"Um." I exhale, and try to think of how to start. "I was enjoying it. You know, at first. Even though it kind of made me nervous when she started leaning in."

Dr. Aurelius interrupts. "If you were uncomfortable, why did you allow Katniss to kiss you in the first place?"

I reach over and poke at one of the couch cushions, arm half covering my face. "I wasn't . . . I mean, I _wanted_ to kiss her, too. It's not like I didn't--"

"That's not what you said. Not exactly. You just told me, _'It kind of made me nervous when she started leaning in.'_

"It’s been a year since I kissed her. Of course I was fucking nervous."

But even as the words leave my mouth, they sound like an excuse, and I can practically hear his voice in my head, reminding me _first_ statements hold the most truth.

“I don’t think the _good_ kind of nervous would explain why you pulled away a few seconds later.” He pauses, but I don’t contradict it. “And this isn’t the first time I’ve heard you make an offhand remark of this sort.”

He waits again. I swallow, shifting uncomfortably.

“Why didn't you stop her?"

"I don't know," I mumble, losing conviction.

Dr. Aurelius clears his throat. “Were you worried you would have an episode?”

Fidgeting a little, I shrug, even though I know he can’t see. Because that fear is _always_ there, somewhere in the back of my mind, and he knows it. “No. I mean . . . I _do_ worry about that, but I wasn’t right then.”

“Then why?” he prods gently.

Seconds tick by, the silence growing ever more uncomfortable, until finally, I squeeze one hand into a fist. "Sometimes . . . I feel like I _can't_. Stop her."

"How do you mean?" There's a pause, and I hear his pen click. "Physically?"

I scoff at this. Because even as strong and graceful as Katniss used to be before she decided to start starving herself, she barely comes up to my mouth. And has more the lithe figure of a sprinter than the bulk of a wrestler.

"Hardly."

"Then how?" he interjects quietly.

I grunt, wondering if I could earn myself another four month stay in the Capitol by admitting I sometimes get off to the thought of her ordering me to come by licking her name possessively in circles around the head of my cock.

"Because I just _can't_ , all right?" I snap, kicking the pillow off the couch. "With her, it's never . . . I'm _always_ the one who . . ."

"The one who what?" he encourages when I trail off.

For a moment, I just lie there, fist clenched over my eyes. And then I exhale a shaky breath, voice strained. "It's like I'm powerless with her. I want her a hell of a lot more than she wants me. I always have. And she fucking knows it, too. Kind of makes me hate her sometimes."

"Yes," Dr. Aurelius says gently. "And we've talked at length about how that feeling of being powerless connects back to other painful topics for you."

I don't respond, both of us able to recite the list by heart. _My family. The reaping. The Games. My torture in the Capitol. Being exploited during my forced stay in Thirteen._

"It was . . . we're not ready," I say at last. "We're both still too unstable. Too wounded."

"Which I don’t entirely disagree with, but still isn’t _precisely_ the same reason you gave Katniss when she asked," he points out. "You said you told her, _'This time we would have to be sure. We would have to_ both _be sure so that no one gets hurt.'_ Which to me suggests strongly the fear of giving up control. And of being rejected again."

“I didn’t mean it that way,” I argue, but can already guess what he’s going to say.

“I’m wondering if there may be a part of you that did.”

I don't say anything, gripping the receiver and trying to even out my breathing. Dr. Aurelius gives me time to sort out the words, waiting quietly on the other end of the line.

"She pissed me off by just . . . walking away. She just . . . left me there. And then wouldn't talk to me later." I cough and wipe my nose, ashamed he can probably tell I'm crying.

"Peeta, let me pose this question to you," Dr. Aurelius counters after a moment, when it’s clear I’m not going to say anything else. "How do you think it made Katniss feel when you kissed her, and then implied immediately after that doing so was something you regretted?"

I frown. " _She_ kissed _me_. And I never said--"

"Yes, I understand some of the particulars might be up for debate were I speaking to you both at once, but you understand the gist of what I'm asking, don't you?"

Rubbing my face, I exhale. "Yeah." He waits while I stare at the empty fireplace across from the couch. "Hurt, I guess."

"Yes." He pauses. "I suspect both of you were hurt by what happened today. And I don’t deny the difficulty this presents for you. We've talked before about the fact that unfortunately, you didn't have particularly helpful models to follow in learning to navigate a relationship. At least not a healthy one."

I make a sound under my breath, but don't bother answering. Because both of us know, even if he won't come right out and say it, that I'm kind of the worst of both of them. That I have her sharp tongue, her volatile temper. Her ability to twist words, and to bend back wrists. And his casual ability to lie, fibs having already started falling effortlessly off my tongue long before I learned how to ice my first cookie or knead my first ball of dough. Words as easy to wield as a paintbrush, he showed me early on they were the best form of camouflage, to misdirect and conceal, tamping things down until I was nearly at the point of exploding.

That while Katniss may fight by shutting me out, on some cold, calculating level, what I do best is manipulate. Lure her close purely for the sick payback of shoving her down in the mud, a sore reminder she once needed me, too, on a cold, rainy April day.

"It didn't . . . _feel_ like I was trying to hurt her at the time," I finally mumble.

Dr. Aurelius is silent for a minute. "I wonder if a better word for what you're doing with Katniss might be _testing_."

I tuck the telephone against my shoulder and rub the scar from her teeth, even from a day's train ride away able to picture his raised eyebrow.

"Testing?"

"Yes. I think there’s a part of you seeking the reassurance Katniss will stay this time no matter what happens between you. And I suspect this lingering fear of rejection stems not from her relatively _minor_ hurts earlier in the relationship, although it is a subject I agree needs to be revisited periodically as the two of you continue to grow closer, but from the much _earlier_ failure of your mother to accept and nurture you, and your father to defend you from her abuse when she did not."

I exhale, not saying anything right away. "She . . . said I was trying to get back at her. For what happened before."

"Does it feel like that's what you're trying to do?"

“Sometimes,” I admit and sit up, running a hand through my hair. "She just--" Letting out a sad, weary laugh, I stare out at the empty room. "She was so _cold_ to me. In Thirteen . . . and after. She's different now, but--"

"We've been over this, Peeta," he interrupts gently. "Many times. The hijacking _very much_ influences all of those memories from the early months after your rescue, and most likely always will. Your feelings of anger and resentment are valid because of the horrible acts that were carried out against you by your torturers, but to continue to hold them against _Katniss_ , and to demand she answer for them time and time again will only poison the possibility of a future relationship with her . . . _if_ that's something you still want."

"Yes," I mumble distractedly, pulling on the ends of my hair.

Dr. Aurelius gives me a minute. "Have you told her you feel that way? _Since_ returning home?"

I slump on the sofa, picking at a thread on my pants. "Pretty sure she knows."

"Nevertheless, I would suggest a long talk might be in order."

I blow out a breath, seeing Katniss' stormy, wounded eyes in the moment before she stalked away.

"Yeah."

 

* * *

 

"I . . . think we used to sleep together."

I can't quite look at him as I say it, the image of the mutt snuggled up in my embrace having haunted me for _days_ until I had no choice but to ask.

From his chair over in the corner, Haymitch raises an eyebrow. "No offense, boy, but you're not exactly my cup of tea."

Glowering, I run a hand through my hair. " _No_. Me and," I falter, struggling to come up with a word that fits, _"her."_

"I see you're acknowledging she's a _her_ now." He leans back in the chair, voice dryly amused. "Some might call that progress."

I pick at the scratchy gray blanket on my bed, glaring hard enough to burn a hole through it. Finally I huff out a breath.

"So _did_ we?" I demand again, irritated.

Haymitch smirks. "Seems you did."

I frown, mulling over that. "She wants to be with Gale now."

"Don't think the girl knows _what_ she wants," Haymitch remarks after a moment.

I laugh harshly.

"She _used_ me. Just like in the arena." Not giving him a chance to respond, I continue snidely. "Put on an act because she couldn't sleep alone for a few nights."

 _Whore_.

"Wound up saving both of you," he points out.

"It was still an act," I retort tersely.

"Parts of it," he concedes, which is more than any of the doctors here have done.

Jaw clenched tight, I stare across the room. "I hate her."

Haymitch doesn't respond right away.

"Thing you have to understand about the girl . . . she keeps stuff bottled up tight. Even from herself. She ever does figure things out, I guarantee you she'll be damn near the last to--"

 _"Stop."_ Screwing my eyes shut, I scrub both hands over my face. "I . . . don't want to . . . she . . . I . . . I can't." I inhale sharply. "I _hate_ her. So fucking much."

He snorts, all but _laughing_ at me.

"No, you don't, boy."

My face suddenly feels like it's on fire and I can't look at him.

"Get out," I snarl, tempted to throw something.

But I don't. And Haymitch wisely departs without another word.

 

* * *

 

The hospital’s large, industrial-grade kitchen is exactly the sort of space I can imagine Effie Trinket would approve of wholeheartedly.

Sharp, shiny corners and gleaming metal surfaces in the same stark white and cold gray of everything else here. Meticulously neat, but nothing remotely warm or inviting. The sort of place that would mass produce bland, slightly overcooked apple turnovers that met all the necessary nutritional requirements, but would never have earned a repeat customer had we tried to sell them at the bakery.

My workspace is near the back, easy to monitor, and far enough from the Avoxes washing dishes that there would be little chance of my sneaking anyone a note asking about Katniss without getting caught. I've been provided with aluminum baking pans, two large mixing bowls, a set of measuring cups, frosting tools, three spoons in various sizes, and a tray in case I feel like making cookies, but nothing remotely sharp enough to injure myself with.

I have it all checked before they walk me upstairs anyway.

But even in its absolute wrongness, the simple act of standing at the glaring metallic counter dredges up memories with a painful lack of filter. The heat of the ovens. Sweat trickling in rivulets down my back. Worn, wooden countertops, my father’s large hands patiently guiding mine as he taught me to knead bread.

Exhaling, I drop the pencil and rub my face, glancing briefly at the timer on the oven before turning back to the open page in my sketchbook, and a memory I still haven’t shared with Dr. Aurelius. She glares at me in the dim light of the tunnels, silver eyes dark with a ferocity so intense that I can still feel the trembling in her small fingers, the bite of the shackles as she yanks my wrists away from my face and squeezes them hard enough to hurt. The cold steel digs into my flesh, drawing a sharp, shuddering breath to my throat, and still she grips me tighter, utterly unwilling to let go, something possessive and powerful washing across her features in the split second before she leans forward and fits her mouth to mine.

“Katniss,” I whisper hoarsely, feeling myself start to get hard. Leaning against the countertop, I wet my lips, trying to remember the exact taste and texture of her tongue.

And it’s there, as I’m idly daydreaming of her pushing me into the wall, that the door swings open with far too much force. Livia drops the book she was reading in surprise, quickly jumping out of her chair before Haymitch can get two steps into the room.

"Mr. Abernathy, I'm sorry. No one is supposed to--"

Clearly tipsy, he just laughs off the warning. "I remember you from the other day . . . Libby, er . . . Lizzie?"

"Livia." She frowns, pale blue eyes darting from him to me, and then back again. "I’m sorry, but Dr. Aurelius said--"

"Just talked to him yesterday.” Haymitch gestures to me. “Mentioned I might stop by sometime and check on the boy."

Livia crosses her arms and fidgets in place, but when she doesn’t dismiss the idea out of hand, I know. That whatever has been going on, they’re _all_ in on it.

"It’ll just take a few minutes.” Reaching into his coat pocket to retrieve a half-empty bottle, he gives her a mock salute. “Then I'll get out of your hair."

Livia doesn’t look at either of us. "I could get in a lot of trouble for this."

"Please, Livia," I say softly. “You can watch us through the door the entire time."

And when she fidgets a little, cheeks coloring, I know it’s the right thing to say, that even if she’d undoubtedly passed with flying colors whatever test Dr. Aurelius required in order to prove she wasn’t requesting to be assigned to me out of a lingering interest in _the star-crossed lovers_ , she’d clearly been one of the countless Capitol viewers who stayed up all night watching Katniss spoon me sips of broth in the cave, or who secretly squealed at the footage of my faked _proposal_. That she wasn't quite as immune as Hadriana, who regularly barked at me to walk faster and stop stalling when we passed a group of people or went down an unfamiliar hallway, or Decima, who hadn't batted an eye before taking my sketchbook.

Shooting a nervous look towards the door, Livia sighs. " _Five minutes_ and that's _it_."

The door swings shut. I come around to where Haymitch is so she has a clear view of us through the window. He pulls his hands from his pockets, settling back against the counter opposite me.

For a moment, we just stand there, wasted seconds ticking by. I huff out a breath.

“Why are you here?”

Haymitch shrugs. "I don’t know. Felt bad about the way we left things."

“Yeah.” I close my eyes, jaw starting to hurt from clenching it. "Can I ask you something?"

There are so many unanswered questions, I’m about to explode. _Has he seen Katniss? Where is she? What are they doing to her?_ But I can’t ask any of them with Livia standing so close to the door. So instead I settle for something that’s nagged at me for months, worming its way into my head late at night while the rest of the hallway tries to sleep.

"The burn unit."

Haymitch doesn't answer, and I force myself to continue.

“You never came to see me.” I try, but it’s hard to keep the accusation out of my voice. “ _No one_ did.”

Pulling out the bottle, Haymitch takes a drink and corks it, running a hand over his face.

“They brought you and the girl in . . . the both of you were in bad shape. Had to be put in tanks filled with foam.” He pauses for another swallow. “Equalize pressure on your skin, they said, and suppress the chance of infection. Help it regenerate where it could. Graft synthetic tissue where it couldn’t. It was going to be painful in the meantime, though, so they decided to put you both in an induced coma until the grafts had a chance to take."

I absorb this in silence. Folding his arms, Haymitch gestures to me.

"They brought Sweetheart out after two weeks. Standard protocol after that degree of injury.” He levels me with a stare. “Couldn’t risk it with you, though, when the only thing holding you together in places was thin as a couple sheets of tissue paper. Said you’d shred your skin to pieces the first time you had an episode. Have to start all over. The whole team of doctors got together, made the call to keep you under a full month so you could heal as much as possible in the tank--”

"You were there?" I interrupt, frowning.

Haymitch rotates the bottle lazily in one hand, choosing not to meet my eye. “Got to hang around until it was time for them to wake you up. Then it was strangers only, like before, Aurelius’ orders. He’d gone through your file by then. Tracked down Hawthorne and . . . what was the name of the Avox with Cressida?"

"Pollux."

"Right." Haymitch lifts the bottle to his lips. "Well, Sweetheart wasn’t talking, but according to those three, there were a few _incidents_ during your time with the squad. Add that to the tapes they have of you and me having those nice chats back at the hospital in Thirteen, and are you really surprised no one would let me within twenty feet of your room?"

I glance over to see Livia watching us nervously.

"And now?" The question is soft, but laced with a challenge. "What's your excuse?"

He shifts in place, clearly uncomfortable. "Seems like you're doing well, boy."

I snort. "Depends what day you're here."

We fall silent. Haymitch takes another drink and I stare at the floor, slowly growing angrier.

"Why her?” Gripping the counter, I shake my head. “Over me. Why do you _always_ choose her?"

I see immediately in the way his face twists that he doesn’t like the question. But he doesn’t get an out. Not this time. And so we wait while he tightens his grip on the bottle.

"It's what you do, boy.” His voice is tired, as if he’s aged a decade in a matter of minutes. “The first thing you do. Odds are never in your favor. Never enough sponsors. Never enough time. And the most you _ever_ get to hope for is _one_."

Hand trembling so hard he can barely maneuver it, he stands the bottle on the counter.

"You pick.” He shrugs. “You choose. Which one over the other. Boy or the girl. Who’s gonna die nice and quick, and who gets to last a day or two longer, maybe even think they have a chance, until some Career slices them into mincemeat. And hate yourself a little more every fucking year."

He takes another sip, staring blankly across the room.

I swallow. "That's not an answer."

Haymitch sputters out a harsh laugh.

"Well, boy, maybe I don't have one. You ever think of that? Not one that'll help you sleep better at night, anyway."

I don’t look at him.

"She was the one I thought I could save. The one I understood." It comes out almost like an apology. _Almost_. "Sweetheart and I . . . in a lot of ways, we’re alike.”

The question forms even though I don’t want it to. “And you and me?”

He grunts and rotates the bottle absently. “Are about as different as two people come.”

I poke at the edge of a pan, more stung by his answer than I was expecting. Clearing his throat, Haymitch continues.

“Truth is, boy, I underestimated you. We all did." He glances towards the door, and then meets my eyes. "Turned out to be stronger than any of us gave you credit for.”

Not daring to look away, I take a careful breath, understanding it was now or never. “Have you seen her?”

"No one sees her."

He checks the door again, but Livia seems to have disappeared from sight. Which means we probably don’t have long.

"She's monitored by camera round the clock, but they won't let any of us in. Not me. Not her mother. Not even Aurelius when he petitioned the court, arguing she needed medical care."

I don’t register that I've locked the edge of the counter in a death grip until my fingers start to ache.

“Where is she?” I demand urgently, in that moment not caring if I had to tear down every wall in the Capitol brick by brick to get to her.

“Keep your voice down,” Haymitch warns. “Now, can you handle hearing this or not? They’re all convinced you can’t. I say, after everything we’ve been through, it’s not their place to decide for us anymore.”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Yes.”

He makes a sound under his breath, but after a moment, continues. “She’s at the Training Center.”

For half a second, I’m sure I must have heard him wrong, that he’s mistaken. But just as quickly, that feeling is replaced by a surge of doubt. And then absolute fury.

“The Training Center,” I repeat quietly.

“That’s right. Her old room and everything. They're keeping her there till the trial's over." He gestures towards the hall. “That girl allowed to just go on break?”

“No.”

Haymitch curses. “Then we’re probably about to have company. Look, boy--”

“What trial?” I interrupt urgently, but don’t get an answer before the door opens, startling us both.

Dr. Aurelius enters the room first, followed by two orderlies from upstairs, Decima, whose expression is impassive, and just behind her, a pale and clearly distraught Livia. They file in silently and stand with their hands clasped, awaiting his instructions. Scanning the room until he finds the two Avoxes doing prep work for the next day’s meals, he says something rapidly in sign, and both immediately clear out.

I glance at Haymitch, who says nothing.

Dr. Aurelius clears his throat, and there’s no masking the annoyance in his tone. “Haymitch, I’m going to need you to step outside.”

No one moves. I refuse to look at him. But eventually, Haymitch shifts uncomfortably in place.

“Guess I’d better go, boy.”

I can feel him watching me, but right then I can’t bring myself to feel about it one way or the other. Part of me registers that maybe I _should_. That I’m being left behind yet again without the slightest effort to put up a fight. Like at the reaping. Like in the arenas. And it’s hard not to wonder if he would give up so easily if I were _Katniss_. But as I finally lock eyes with Dr. Aurelius from across the room, it’s hard to feel anything but cold, trembling rage.

“Fine.”

The word sounds and tastes numb. And with that, Haymitch goes. I stuff my hands in my armpits, glowering at the floor in Dr. Aurelius’ direction.

"Is it true?" I finally grit out.

He slowly nods. “I know this must come as a shock--”

“Just answer the fucking question. _Has_ Katniss been at the Training Center this whole time?"

“Yes.”

I stare down at the floor. “I want to see her.”

“I’m sorry, but that isn’t possible.”

“Fuck you.”

Anger spikes in my chest, and trailing immediately on its heels, a sharp, sickening sense of desperation. Running both hands through my hair, I squeeze my eyes shut.

“I’ll try to answer some of your questions,” he continues calmly, staying back by the door while I continue to pace. “But you need to calm down--"

"You _lied_ to me."

The accusation is sharp, _angry_ , but there’s an almost strangled note at the end, and I turn away before he can see my face crumple.

"Information was withheld so as not to upset--"

"Fuck you,” I yell again, kicking over the closest stool. “You fucking lied to me."

"Peeta," Dr. Aurelius warns. "If you aren't able to calm down on your own, I'll have no choice but to sedate you."

Grabbing a pan off the counter, I throw it across the room in his general direction, but let it go wide on purpose. Watching it clatter against the wall and fall noisily to the floor, I slump against the counter and wipe my face. The orderlies keep their distance, but slowly take up position on either side of me. I glare at the closest one, and Dr. Aurelius shakes his head in a barely perceptible motion to stop him from advancing any further.

"I realize this is upsetting news. Katniss is very important to you. But she is not in any danger."

I close my eyes, chest heaving. "You told me she was safe and _fucking secure_. Why does she need medical care?"

"Peeta--"

"Fuck you." Anger claws up my chest and I knock everything within reach off the counter, grab the closest stool, and hurl it at him. "You've all been fucking lying to me this whole time."

It misses, and by the time I find something else to throw, one of the orderlies has moved up behind me, gets me in a hold while the second one hurries over, and together they drag me to the floor. I thrash like a captured animal, spitting out every horrible name I can think of while, together with Dr. Aurelius, they hold me down, but it isn’t until I see Decima approach with a syringe that anger shifts to panic.

 _“No.”_ All but howling it, I try to buck them off. “Don’t--”

I struggle against them, but eventually Decima gets the needle in and I feel the cold, alien shiver of the sedative entering my veins.

Glaring at Dr. Aurelius one final time, I swallow, hurt swelling in my chest. "I hate you."

He meets my eyes, and says something quietly, but I can’t make it out. And as the pattern of his tie begins to swim, I feel one of them lower my head gently to the floor.

"I trusted you." It comes out slurred, my muscles refusing to respond, and I eventually stop fighting, allowing myself to slip into nothingness.

 

* * *

 

The next time Thirteen’s guards allow Haymitch to enter my room, he finds me strapped to the bed. I glance up warily when the door opens, but resume staring at the wall once I see it's only him. He coughs and clears his throat.

"Rough morning?"

"Fuck off."

"Nice." Coming over to the side of my bed, he rocks back on his heels. "I take it things didn't go so well with the cake? Seemed like you were doing okay there at the beginning."

I frown. “You were there?”

“Stopped by for a few minutes.”

He shrugs. Our eyes meet and I quickly look away.

“So, what, you threw the thing into the wall? Frosted ‘ _fuck_ off’ across the top in pretty little sugar swirls, and they confiscated your icing bag for the day?”

I snort and shake my head. But after a moment, I let out a breath. “Had a flashback. On the way back to my room."

"Huh. Was it--”

"Apparently I hit one of the guards."

He grunts. "You don't remember?"

I flop back against the pillow. "Sometimes I don't remember anything at all. Other times I can sort of tell where I am, but everything is distorted." I take a breath, focusing on a fixed point across the room. "I overheard one of the doctors say the venom may have permanently altered my brain function. That even once it's out of my system, the episodes won't ever completely go away."

Haymitch is silent, and my jaw tightens as I wait for him to be the mentor and offer sage advice. That I’ll figure it out. That I'll learn to live with it, since what other choice is there? The same thing I’m pretty sure he said when I first woke up and saw my leg was gone. But he doesn't. And for maybe the first time since he's started coming to see me, I'm almost glad he's here. That for some inexplicable reason, he's continued to come, no matter how many times I’ve screamed at him until my throat was raw and ordered him to stay the fuck away from me. Haymitch, who might be the one person left who won’t bullshit me, and who, for once in his life, didn't fuck things up in the moment I needed him.

"It just came back.” I don’t look up at him. “With the cake.”

"Yeah?"

I shrug, not particularly eager to try to put into words the strangeness of sitting on a stool in an unfamiliar kitchen, for that space of time oddly _calm_ , reassured even in the absence of tangible memory by how completely, how _inexplicably_ my hands knew the work even when my mind did not.

A minute passes, and then two. And then I lick my lips.

"Are there any more tapes of her singing?"

Even without looking, it's easy enough to hear the smirk in his voice. "Thought you hated her."

My finger traces back and forth along the metal bar on the side of my bed, the cold steel reflecting narrow flickers of light like a pair of scowling silver eyes. Always watching, even when I try to turn away.

"I want to see her," I say softly. Haymitch doesn't respond and I swallow, forcing my lips to form her name without a scream or an expletive attached for the first time since I was rescued. "Katniss."

The silence that follows is deafening, and I can only imagine the pandemonium that must be going on behind the one-way glass. But Haymitch doesn’t look at them. Only at me.

"You sure, boy?"

I blink. And nod.

And after a long moment, Haymitch turns for the door. "Don't get your hopes up. But I'll see what I can do."

 

* * *

 

Somewhere in between my planting the row of primrose bushes under Katniss' window and Haymitch deciding to occupy his waking hours with what Dr. Aurelius eventually pointed out was a comparatively harmless pastime involving geese, we all pretty much abandoned knocking when we showed up to each other’s houses.

And not long after, Katniss and I were eating so many meals together that we eventually stopped making formal plans to do so the next time around, not bothering to ask if the other was coming over later when I'd shown up every morning for Sae’s eggs for weeks, when we’d sat down to supper so many times that I now merely rolled my eyes at her less than dainty habit of sopping up her gravy with a slice of bread, too busy anticipating the faint smile that curled at the edge of her mouth whenever she saw I brought over something chocolate for dessert.

So when she doesn't even glance up as I enter her kitchen, it's nothing _that_ out of the ordinary, my arrival the day before having barely caused her to cock her head from the pot of soup she was stirring. But after our fight earlier, I can't say it doesn't still smart.

Her shoulders stiffen as soon as I set the pie on the table, but she doesn’t turn, just waves her hand in annoyance at the haze of smoke filling the kitchen and bends down to pull the duck out of the oven.

"Need some help?"

Katniss sets the pan down with more force than necessary and scowls at me over one shoulder.

"No."

Ignoring her, I grab the extra apron off the hook in the cupboard. She doesn't say anything when I come up behind her, but makes room and allows me to help drain the grease into a can while she carefully rotates the duck on the rack.

She stoops to slide the pan into the oven, once again pretending not to notice my existence while I open her windows to let out the smoke. Finally straightening once the door is shut and the timer set, she fiddles with the hot pad and looks down, clearly nervous. I lean against the counter, watching the way her hair spills in dark, glossy strands over her shoulders.

"Dinner won't be ready for half an hour." She mumbles it, talking more to the ruffled edge of the oven mitt she’s picking at than me.

Unable to deny the tiniest bit of satisfaction at watching her squirm after the way she stalked off earlier, I fold my arms rather than answer.

Clearly displeased with my lack of response, Katniss scuffs at a mark on the floor as if doing so will somehow distract from the faint hints of pink blossoming in her cheeks.

"Why are you here so early?"

I laugh softly, waiting until she looks up to shrug. "Needed to borrow a cup of flour."

She snorts, but a smile flirts with the corner of her mouth. We stand there silently while she chews her lip and continues playing footsie with the scuff on the floor.

"I'm still mad at you."

I tap fingers against the counter. "Yeah, well, I'm still mad at you, too."

She lets out a quiet huff and tucks her arms in a little tighter. But after a minute, I edge over until we're only standing a few feet apart.

"I talked to Dr. Aurelius," I finally say, watching her continue to study her toes like they're the most fascinating thing she's ever seen.

She clears her throat, swiping at a strand of hair that escaped from behind her ear. "And?"

I grunt. “Got the usual lecture on how we should be in separate beds.”

The noise she makes in response is annoyed, defiant, but I don’t miss the way her shoulders hunch defensively. Or that she starts to chew her nails.

“I can’t sleep without you there.”

“I know.”

“You told him?”

“Yes.”

She picks at her cuticles. “What did he say?”

“That he worries it’s only going to hurt us both.” I shrug, trying to decide how much to tell her. “That it’s . . .”

Katniss frowns. “That it’s what?”

_Confusing a relationship you’re both struggling to define by suggesting a level of intimacy neither of you really seems comfortable with. All but asking for hormone-fueled impulses to result in awkward situations where, in an absence of honest conversation taking place first, hurt feelings are bound to be the result. You’re both still very fragile._

“That we’re not ready,” I finish after a moment.

Katniss scoffs, expression darkening. “Just because I decided to go hunting?”

Her voice is sharp. Taking a breath, I shake my head.

“It’s more than that, and you know it. You . . . _do_ this, all the time . . . with me, with your mom.” I don’t miss that she’s suddenly gone very quiet. “You avoid Dr. Aurelius when you’ve had a bad spell and don’t want him to make you talk about it.” I don’t let my eyes leave her face. “It _hurts_ me, Katniss. Just like it did before.”

Visibly uncomfortable, she looks away, and I know it’s only pure stubbornness and a reluctance to prove me right that keeps her from bolting from the room. A long, tense silence passes, and then,

“It’s not the same thing.”

“It is to me. I was wrong, too. I know I hurt you with what I said . . . but you get so angry and then you just shut me out--”

I fall silent when a single tear streaks past the edge of her nose.

“I get it, all right?” she snaps.

“Do you?”

She swipes a hand over her cheeks, eyes unwilling to meet mine. I toe the kitchen tile a few inches from her foot, trying to work out what I want to say.

"There are moments where everything feels so . . . _clear_ ," I say carefully. "Where I'm not confused from the hijacking. Or angry about anything that happened after."

She digests this in silence, face impassive.

Swallowing, I continue in a softer voice. "All I remember is how much I want you. How much I've _always_ wanted you." Katniss turns to stare. "Like today, when we were at the lake."

For a few seconds, her breathing is the only sound in the room. My hand carefully broaches the last few inches between us, sneaking across the counter to lace her fingers with mine. She allows it, unprotesting, and as I feel the nervous twitch in her fingertips, I know I owe her nothing less than the truth.

“You weren’t wrong," I admit softly. “I wanted to kiss you.”

Her hand, still nestled in mine, goes very still, and I watch her cheeks darken. Finally she exhales. "Then why--"

"Because there are days I just can't get it out of my head. Days where I can't stop picturing you with him. Can't stop remembering what it was like to lie there in that cell, hating you and Haymitch for abandoning me."

Her face falls and she lifts her chin, blinking suddenly like she's trying not to cry.

I shrug again. "Dr. Aurelius says I blame you when really, it's other people I should be angry at. And maybe he's right."

Katniss doesn't respond.

"But I'm not there yet, and until I am, we shouldn’t let things, you know, go too far."

She tugs her hand free from mine, mouth quivering at the edges, and wraps both arms around herself once more. I stare into her face, watch her start to speak and stop, gaze stubbornly trained on the window.

"So this is still about Thirteen?" she whispers. "That's why you can't forgive me?"

Heat crawls up my neck, and I hear in the bitterness in her voice everything she's _not_ saying. That she'd somehow gotten past my vicious attempt to strangle her. All the horrible things I'd hurled at her when she visited my room. That I'd tried to smash her head in with the butt of a rifle. And perhaps worst of all, that a part of me would probably _always_ harbor perverse visions of doing so. And I couldn't let this go.

"It's more than that," I argue, rubbing my face. "You . . . don't understand."

Katniss glares, eyes dark with hurt. "I don't understand _what_?"

I take a deep breath. "The _things_ I see. Things the hijacked part of my brain might try to . . . actually _do_ if we were . . . together."

"Like what?" she demands without missing a beat, scowling in all of her contrary glory, and it's all I can do not to laugh weakly from some combination of depthless affection and despair.

Because of _course_ Katniss Everdeen would be too pure to understand this, couldn't possibly fathom the sheer number of times she invades my consciousness over the course of a day, a morning or even an hour, images that require a far different list of words to describe than the one I once shared on a cool fall night outside the Capitol, a confession of sorts that would undoubtedly bring a dark flush to the soft, innocent curve of her cheeks.

Lick. Suckle. Bite. _Fuck_.

That some feral part of me I never want her to know about harbors fantasies of trapping her small wrists in my hands. _Hard_ , just like the shackles she once used to imprison mine, pinning them on either side of her head as she stares up at me with heavy-lidded eyes and trembling lips. In bed when we’ve first woken up. On top of the long table in her kitchen while we're drying and putting away the dishes, after she tries to flick me in the butt with the end of her towel like I warn her _every_ time not to do. By the sofa as we work on pages in the memory book, pulling her down onto the plush rug in front of the hearth if she tries to stubbornly resist.

To hold her down until her protests quiet, until she stops trying to squirm away or wrestle me off, and then slowly lave the skin of her throat with the softest brush of lips and teasing strokes of my tongue. Adoring. Worshipful. Until the strained arch of her back and angry flex of her wrists in my hands twists and sways in time with my mouth, the two of us locked in the sinuous push and pull of a dance. Until the breathy whisper of my name is no longer inflected with fury, but an unspoken plea to work the uppermost buttons of her blouse from their slits with my teeth, nuzzle the sensitive skin over her collarbone and nudge the fabric a little further open.

That something inside me wants _her_ , for once, to be the one to beg. To plead. The one who's quietly wounded and powerless to do a thing about it. To hold her there. Captive. Where she _can't_ brush me aside, escape to her woods, or to the safety of a small, dark closet. Where she can't run to someone else's arms in the moment she has to answer, turn her back on feeling something in favor of another pair of lips. And it's that part, the dark, angry Peeta they sent back from the Capitol, or maybe that had been there all along, that wants to _feast_ upon the soft, strangled noises forming deep in her throat with each nibble dropped on inch after inch of newly exposed flesh. Lips touching light as a dusting of powdered sugar. Flitting away easily as a breath might scatter an accidental sprinkling of crumbs. Not consenting to linger until faint whines turn to moans, and starting to suck in earnest only after her subtle squirming becomes the tight back and forth rub that can only be taken as a concession of defeat, a desperate bid to relieve the pressure building between her legs by grinding against the hard length of my cock.

And as I allow my lips to dip lower each time until they're tickling the thin edge of lace at the top of her camisole, and the Katniss who inhabits the back of my eyelids arches towards the warmth of my mouth, I can only swallow a thick knot of shame, humiliated by the sick wave of lust that blooms at the thought of sucking small, dark splotches onto her neck as she moans for more, at the depravity of squeezing her wrists until they bruise, marking her as indelibly as she did the back of my hand. _Hurting_ her, just as the Capitol's venom-crazed mutt did before, this time out of a desire to possess rather than destroy, to finally force her to say the words, admit that she wants me, this time for good. That she would _never_ walk away.

I blink, glancing up to find Katniss staring at me expectantly. Hesitating, I close my eyes.

"I _never_ want to hurt you again. When I think about what I tried to do to you before--"

"That _wasn't you_ ," she interrupts, tone quiet but hard, and when I start to shake my head automatically in denial, the fierceness in her eyes forces me to look away. "He had you tortured until you didn't even know what you were doing."

I exhale. "You don't understand--"

She steps closer and I fall silent, not particularly wanting to share the humiliation of watching myself lunge off the hospital bed and grab her throat like some sort of deranged beast, bashing her skull against every available surface in the small treatment area until Boggs knocked me unconscious. _Shame_ not a strong enough word to describe the enormity of what I'd felt when Dr. Aurelius and I eventually got to those recordings, they were some of the rare few he never did allow me to access alone back in my room. Whether it was really _me_ or not.

Katniss chews her lip. "I know it's something you worry about, but . . . you're better now. We both are."

I shrug. She's both right and wrong. Dr. Aurelius may have insisted a thousand times over that I've made _significant progress_. That the only person losing sleep over the irrational worry I'm in some way not stable enough to be home is _me_. But I still get confused, still have bouts of lingering anger, and still have flashbacks every week or two, the latter of which I don’t allow Katniss to see.

The cool whisper of fingertips brushing my cheek makes me startle. Katniss slows, but doesn't pull back, cautiously sliding her hand up to cup my jaw when I don't move away. I frown, shoulders slumping, nervous where this will lead, but unable to keep from leaning into the soft cradle of her fingers. We stand that way for several endless seconds, and I drown in the feather-light brush of her thumb skimming past the edge of my lips, both of us painfully aware how badly I want her touch.

When her other hand slides up my chest, I don’t even try to fight it. Nor do I make any attempt to resist when she tentatively steps into my space and draws me down to her. She smells clean like vanilla and lavender soap, the woodsy scent that never seems to leave her skin light as a warm summer evening, and her hair tickles my cheek when my arms tighten to pull her closer. Katniss immediately softens, tucking her head against my chest. It feels so good, holding her, and I barely stop myself from letting out an embarrassing sigh when she begins to gently ruffle the hair at the back of my neck.

We stay like that for what feels like forever, something close to a whine catching in my throat when she finally pulls away.

"Haymitch will be here soon," she says, and tucks a strand of hair behind one ear. "We should probably--"

“Yeah.” I clear my throat, not quite looking at her, glad the apron made it less obvious I was getting hard. "What needs to be done?"

Katniss glances around. "Can you make the gravy? I'll set the table."

Pulling out a saucepan and her whisk, I'm just pouring a little of the grease into it when the front door opens and shuts.

"Something burning?"

Glowering at Haymitch, Katniss throws the oven mitt at him. "Do something useful.”

He barely makes the catch, and I quickly confiscate it before he can burn himself, motioning him towards the stove. "I’ll get it. You can stir."

Katniss appears at my elbow just as I'm finished carving up the meat and transferring it to a serving dish.

"Does it look done?"

Haymitch snorts. “Could smell how _done_ it was from my house, Sweetheart.”

She makes a face.

I smile and pull off a bite of the meat, offering it to her. She takes it shyly from my fingers, lips brushing the pad of my thumb. Neither of us move, Katniss quietly chewing, me staring transfixed at her mouth, until somewhere on the other side of the room, Haymitch makes a point of clearing his throat.

I turn back to the sink, heat crawling up my neck, and I don’t miss the color rising in Katniss’ cheeks as well.

She toys with the edge of a dishtowel while I wash my hands. "You made a chocolate walnut pie."

Her voice is neutral, but I can’t help but notice how carefully she’s avoiding my eye. Hiding a smile, I pick up the platter.

"Haymitch likes them."

The look on her face is so hopelessly Katniss, so wonderfully oblivious, that I can’t keep from laughing. She scowls and I nudge her playfully, leaning close to her ear.

"I'm teasing. It's for you."

Her cheeks darken a little more, but she’s smiling as she slides into the chair next to mine. Haymitch glances between us, and helps himself to a slice of bread.

"Guess you kids made up, huh?"

I meet his raised eyebrow with an evasive smile. Katniss scoops up a baked tuber and smothers it with gravy, leveling Haymitch with a look.

"Are you going to help us with the book later?"

"Not sure I'll have the time." He passes across the platter with the meat.

Katniss makes a sound under her breath. “Have such a pressing schedule to keep, do you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

She rolls her eyes and we finish dishing up supper in silence.

"This is damn good, Sweetheart," Haymitch remarks once the duck is nearly gone and we’re finishing up second helpings of everything. "Your mom's recipe?"

Still chewing, Katniss nods. I frown at Haymitch from across the table, but he ignores me and continues anyway.

"You two talk lately?"

Her face falls. And as she starts to poke absently at a bite of bread and gravy, I can see the answer reflected back in her eyes, guilt magnified tenfold by what I'd said earlier. I nudge my elbow closer to hers, wishing I could pull her aside and wrap her in a fierce hug, but certain she wouldn’t want me to in front of Haymitch.

She flinches at the contact, hair spilling across her cheek in a dark curtain that she hastily tucks back.

"No." It comes out raspy, and she takes a long drink of water before setting the glass down. “We haven’t talked.” Clearing her throat, she turns to me. "So, which page should we start next?"

I wipe my mouth. "What do you think?"

Katniss trails the tines of her fork through the remains of her tubers, voice thoughtful. “Boggs?”

“That’s fine.” And it is, I suppose. He was important to her, and I have no attachment to him either way, aside from the lingering shame of knowing he had to knock me out cold to stop me from _killing_ her, the thought of working on his page together the slightest bit . . . uncomfortable.

Reaching across the table, I grab a clean knife and start slicing the pie.

Katniss toys with the edge of the tablecloth. "I don't have a preference, really.” She accepts the piece I hand her, flashing me a tiny smile when our eyes meet. “Thanks.”

“This is good, boy.”

Wolfing down another bite topped with a generous spoonful of whipped cream, Haymitch inclines his chin in my direction. I nod and cut the point off my slice.

“Boggs doesn’t _have_ to be next.” Katniss finally breaks the silence, licking her fork clean before dropping it onto her plate.

I shrug. “Whatever you want.”

She’s silent for a minute. And then fingers the edge of the tablecloth.

“I don’t have a preference, really. I just feel bad that most of the pages we’ve made so far have been people,” she chews her lip, “you know, that _I_ chose. People I was closer to.”

I don’t respond. But as I think over the list, it’s hard to fairly call her statement wrong either. Her father. Rue. Not even up for question. Finnick, who had been _her_ friend, and never really mine. Thresh, who had sacrificed his best chance at survival because he respected her sense of fairness. Of honor. Cinna, who had seen something special in her from the start, just like I had, who understood her worth even when she couldn’t see it herself. Who defied the Capitol one final time in front of all of Panem knowing it would certainly mean his death. Mags, who like the woman from Six and so many others, had gone into a second arena understanding she would likely never come out, gone in with only one practical objective in mind, had saved me that it might mean saving _her_ , the truth of who it had all been for never more plainly revealed than in the moment when the hovercrafts arrived and choices had to be made. Who was worth saving? Who to leave behind?

“I just thought, maybe if you wanted to work on Portia’s next,” she hesitantly meets my eye, “or even--”

“No, let’s do Boggs,” I interrupt, not looking at her. “Are you done with that?”

Katniss frowns, but passes me her plate, the room growing very quiet as I carry the stack of dishes to the sink. I lean on the edge of the counter as the water runs, watching soap foam up in the bottom of the wash basin.

“Peeta?”

I flinch when her hand makes contact with my back, splashing water onto the floor. Exhaling, I lower my head for a few seconds and then start on the plates. There’s a long silence, and then Haymitch pushes back from the table.

“Think it’s actually my turn with the dishes, boy. Why don’t you sit down?”

I grunt, everyone in the room aware he hadn’t washed a dish since moving into his house, leaving them in stinking piles on his counter until Katniss, Sae or I became too disgusted by the smell and took care of them.

“I’m fine,” I answer curtly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Katniss frowning, and as she slowly removes her hand, I can tell her feelings are hurt, but in that moment it’s hard to bring myself to care.

Because I know what she was about to say. Who she meant. And I know she would undoubtedly want to fill the last pages that would ever record the details of his life with the same sort of memories we had for _her_ dad. Crisp white paper sacks of cookies. Squirrels exchanged for bread. Learning to bake on cozy winter afternoons, the heat of the ovens pushing out the cold that howled outside. The scent of cinnamon and sugar thick in the air.

And he was all those things. The one who patiently taught me to sculpt tiny frosted flowers on sheets of waxed paper in the back of the kitchen. The one who stooped down beside me in the mornings before school, his large foot dwarfing my smaller one as his gentle hands guided me to double-knot my shoelaces, one after the other. Who insisted we keep the tables and counter space clean, running the back room of the bakery with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine. And also the one who heard the shouting from the next room, the words that were wielded like weapons, day after day, cutting harder and deeper than a simple lash or slap. Saw the welts that were left after silence descended once again and she retreated to her room like a spider crawling back into its lair. Knew what she was doing. To me. To Bannock. To Rye. Brought us bits of crushed ice wrapped in cloth from the small freezer in back of the bakery. Sometimes a stale cookie if he could sneak it without her seeing. And then sat down to dinner and politely ladled soup into all our bowls, one after the other, divided crusty bread and answered her neutrally when she inquired about the afternoon customers. As if nothing out of sorts had happened at all.

_“Peeta.”_

It’s only as I catch her whisper, pained as if she’s trying to reach me from miles away, hear the fear etched into her voice, that I notice the wavy lines at the edge of my vision, the kitchen distorted as if it’s melting away just like the ghostly, crumbled buildings in town.

“Not real,” I mumble, covering my eyes.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I register that Katniss continues to call for me, voice plaintive. But it's another hand that catches me by the shoulder when I stumble clumsily from the counter. Another arm that guides me over to the nearest chair.

“Here, boy.”

The words gruff, I don’t question them. Just grip the chair’s hard wooden back and squeeze my eyes shut, reassured in my last seconds of coherent thought by the knowledge that Haymitch would take Katniss outside as soon as I had something firm to hold onto, by force if necessary. Not because he promised he would, or because we had an agreement, although he had, and we did. But because if there is nothing else I can trust about Haymitch Abernathy after two arenas, a rebellion, and the countless disappointments that came in between, it’s that he will choose Katniss Everdeen over me each and every time.

 

* * *

 

At some point close to morning, I try to roll over in bed, only to gradually grow aware that thick cuffs tether me in place at the wrists and ankle. Understanding comes faster this time, and unlike before, doesn't bring with it the same sense of panic, my body and mind responding too sluggishly from the drugs to work up much of a reaction, incensed or otherwise. Exhausted from the effort, I drift back off.

The next time I wake up, pale light is drifting in through the window. My back is sore from sleeping in one position all night, and my bladder is about to explode.

Groping around the bed, I find the call button and push it every five seconds until someone answers.

"How are you feeling, Peeta?"

I frown, not anticipating Decima. There's no way she didn't know about Katniss, not with the way Dr. Aurelius seems to trust her and Hadriana with things over all the other nurses. And I hate her for it. But not enough to sulk in restraints all morning when I have to use the bathroom. Or even enough to spend half an hour screaming at the camera in the corner while she turns down the volume at the nurse's station and simply ignores me.

My jaw clenches. "The restraints?"

"Fifteen minutes of calm behavior to remove them." There's a pause. "Do you want me to take out your IV?"

I want nothing more than to rip my hands free from the cuffs, kick down the door, and scream in her face how much I hate her for doing this to me. How much I hate _all_ of them.

"Yes," I answer woodenly, keeping my gaze trained on a slight wrinkle in the bedsheet.

I don't react while she removes the tubing and tape from my arm, making sure my eyes stay on the same little wrinkle until she's through.

"Are you thirsty?"

I shake my head without looking up. Decima waits a moment.

"Bathroom?"

And at this, I finally lift my eyes and regard her coldly.

"I'll wait."

* * *

As promised, she returns after eleven and a half more minutes to take off the restraints. I pick at the fruit and oatmeal someone leaves while I'm in the shower, not bothering to check the drawer in the nightstand when I already know it's been emptied of my charcoals, as well as the small screen that houses my collection of recordings of Katniss.

The knock comes after I've been sitting with my back to the door for close to an hour, staring out the window at the Capitol and trying to imagine what Katniss must be doing at that very moment. I don't turn when Dr. Aurelius enters the room, and he doesn't comment on it, just pulls the chair around and takes a seat.

I watch the people walking on the streets below, shuffling paths across the snow like a rainbow of brightly colored ants in gaudy wigs and coats that look like they should be displayed as sticks of candy in the sweetshop back home in Twelve, until I'm sure I can say the words without any emotion attached.

"You told me Katniss was somewhere safe." A sudden tightness forms in my chest, and I swallow, fingertip tracing delicately back and forth over the mark left by her teeth. _"Secure."_

"And she is," he answers calmly, something about the way he does it all the more infuriating. "We have her under constant observation."

My jaw tightens and I have to force it to unknot. "Who does?"

"My staff."

 _"Constant observation."_ Still not looking at him, I pick at the bandage, my words holding a quiet accusation. "Like the room where they kept me in Thirteen?"

Dr. Aurelius considers the question.

"No. Katniss isn't being restrained or sedated. Nor is anyone experimenting on, or seeking to exploit her. Any video footage recorded is destroyed within forty-eight hours. The monitoring is for her safety and well-being, nothing more."

I stare out the window. "Haymitch said she needed medical care."

He doesn't immediately respond. "No one is hurting her and she is in no danger. You don't need to worry about that."

I frown. "Then why did Haymitch--"

"Peeta, please understand that there are certain specifics I may not be able to divulge. Just as you have a right to expect any information I may learn over the course of being your doctor to stay confidential between us, Katniss has a similar right to privacy. I know you want answers, but there are some things I am not at liberty to share."

"Then how does Haymitch know?"

I don't dare look at him as I say it, but I know he doesn't miss the hostility that edges into my voice.

Dr. Aurelius nods. "As Katniss is still under eighteen, Haymitch has been appointed her temporary guardian."

I frown, finally turning from the window. “What about her mother?”

He meets my eyes, but says nothing, and I look away. The image of the three of them from that night back in Twelve comes rushing back, the tenderness in Mrs. Everdeen’s eyes as she checked her oldest daughter’s swollen ankle, Prim staring up at Katniss adoringly, and all I can feel is sorrow. And worry, for Katniss, who I now picture, small, cold and starving outside the bakery in the rain. Katniss, who now had _no one_ left in the world she could count on _but_ Haymitch. Because I was of absolutely no help to her in here.

"When does her trial start?"

He doesn't answer, just places his clipboard on his knee. I make a derisive sound under my breath.

"What, you can't tell me _that_ , either?"

"No, I’m sorry, but I can’t."

I pick at the bandage again, slowly growing angrier. A minute goes by, and when I fail to say anything else, Dr. Aurelius clears his throat.

"We need to talk about what happened yesterday."

I roll my eyes, still not looking at him, every breath becoming harder and harder to draw until it feels like I have an anvil weighing down on the center of my chest. I open my mouth to tell him to go fuck himself, but something else comes out instead.

"You _lied_ to me."

Amazingly, it isn't until I hear the words out loud that I recognize just how _furious_ they make me. That they come straight from the source of hurt welling someplace deep in my gut. That just like Haymitch and Katniss had conspired countless times to hide things from me, their own secret alliance of two, _he_ and Haymitch were lying to me now. That once again I was being written off, brushed aside, deemed too insignificant for my feelings to _possibly_ matter.

"I understand you're angry with me, Peeta," Dr. Aurelius says evenly when I don't go on. "Our concern, _my_ concern, was that giving you information on Katniss' current whereabouts would cause you considerable and constant anxiety when you weren’t yet emotionally stable enough to deal with it, that it would become an impediment to your recovery, perhaps prevent you from making _any_ forward progress at all, when there was absolutely _nothing_ you could do to help her."

He waits for me to say something, and when I just stare out the window as if he hadn't spoken at all, goes on.

"Katniss is being looked after, and has an entire team seeing to her defense--"

"I don't want to talk to you anymore," I interrupt, still avoiding his eye.

A long moment passes. But I know, if nothing else, I’ll be granted this, that it goes against everything he believes to try to force anyone to talk. I either choose to do so voluntarily, or not at all. And after a few seconds, I hear the scrape of a chair being pulled around to the corner of the room.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Peeta."

"No.” I turn when he’s almost to the door, making sure he can see in my eyes that it _doesn’t_ bother me. That _I don’t care_. “If it’s all right with you, I’d rather talk to Dr. Lucius from now on.”

And in the brief silence that follows, I’m suddenly flooded with the image of our dinner table back home in Twelve, Father, Bannock and Rye all sitting stiffly with their eyes on their bowls while I stare defiantly at her, tensed for the slap that was sure to come. Dr. Aurelius clears his throat.

"I'll let him know."

He goes. I try not to react, knowing anything I do will be caught on the video feed, but the sound of the door sliding closed somehow only serves to make me angrier. I stare out at the falling snow, an invisible fist clenching my chest tighter and tighter every second until finally I grab the water cup off the nightstand and hurl it across the room.

* * *

 

Part 2 of 3 . . .

Comments are like roasted duck with baked katniss tubers, and Peeta to play footsie with while you wait for everything to come out of the oven. Would love to hear what you thought :)

 


	7. The Sun Will Rise

 

_“I don’t think people in general are his sort of thing.”_

 

* * *

 

It is, after a week of surly answers and stubborn insistence I don't _need_ his help, the first thing I grudgingly allow Dr. Aurelius to teach me. Coming on the heels of an episode that gets me placed in soft restraints for twisting the bedsheets around my wrists and damaging the newly regrown grafts of synthetic tissue the doctors in the burn unit had laboriously coaxed my body into accepting, his suggestion that perhaps there might be a way for me to accomplish the same result _without_ injuring myself falls on deaf ears.

 _The pain helps me focus_ , I all but snarl, slimy and slathered in burn medicine, and wary of yet another head doctor in yet another hospital. And that's when he tilts his head, expression indiscernible as he studies me from across the room.

"Is that the only reason you do it?"

My first reaction is to tell him to go fuck himself. And it's months before I muster the courage to give his question any true consideration. But without much choice in the matter other than staying tied up indefinitely while one of the nurses spoons me my meals, I allow him to present an alternative. _Concentrated focus on an external stimulus_ not _present during my interrogation or time isolated in captivity_. Shifting my energies from something that induced more pain to a subconscious reminder of strength, using a firm grip on first the rails of my hospital bed and later the back of a chair to maintain the distinction between real and not real even when my worst nightmares howled vicious and bright before my eyes.

But at a certain level, there’s not much to do but wait them out. Flinch as the mutts surge forward in a tidal wave of fangs and fur to slash through the mangled flesh of my throat. Panic at the sensation of bleeding out, terrified and alone, at the base of the Cornucopia, Katniss having long since sprinted off to safety. And as I feel the skin being peeled from my flesh for the fifth time, for the _tenth_ , I gradually become aware of two things.

That something is constricting my chest, a rope or strap of some sort. And for one torturous moment, Snow cackles with a feral, bloody smile while I entertain the silent fear that I might be _wrong_. That I could still be chained to a chair in the Capitol while they steadily increase the flow of venom, the long, exhausting memories of a stint in a psychiatric hospital no more real than the dozens of kisses Katniss fooled me into accepting while the audience laughed, _Dr. Aurelius_ likely one of my interrogators. I shudder and attempt to twist away, and it's then that I notice the hand gripping my arm.

"Easy, boy."

I whine, unable to place the speaker. But as I hunch lower and tighten my grasp on the chair, the band around my chest seems to draw snugger, radiating warmth up my back despite the chill of the arena and the wet grass soaking through my shirt. Another voice whispers my name, softer and more plaintive than the first, a caress that strokes the taut, quivering muscles of my shoulder blades.

S _tay with me_.

I whine again, fingers digging into the wood of the chair. But for better or worse, it’s _her_ voice that’s been in my head for over half my life, singing more hauntingly than the most beautiful of birds, shrieking through a mouthful of fangs, whispering above the hum of machines as we sit in a dark tunnel, waiting to die, the one voice it sometimes seems I have no choice but to obey.

The arena shifts, the sun rising hot and punishing in the sky. I blink, disoriented, and watch the Cornucopia slowly melt into the ground. Chaotically spliced images swirl like flashes from a deeply fevered sleep. Katniss spoons me a mouthful of broth. Laughs maniacally as I begin to foam at the mouth, a handful of poisoned berries dropping from her palm. Strokes the hair away from my brow with cautious tenderness, more afraid of herself than of me. My head has begun to pound, sharp staccato beats unrelenting as the pound of the club every morning in my cell at questioning time. Steadying my grip on the chair, I crack my eyes only to immediately shrink back from the light.

“Shit,” a familiar voice mutters.

The light clicks off, and it’s after I squint distrustfully for the second time and discover Haymitch regarding me warily from behind Katniss’ kitchen table, recognize the viselike grip on my chest as a pair of arms, that understanding comes like a punch to the gut.

"What . . . you . . . _no_ ," I croak, jerking Katniss’ hands off me and staggering away from them both. _"No."_

Heat crawls up my neck. I scrub both hands over my face, humiliation warring with fear, despair, and a strange raw feeling I couldn't hope to name. Unable to look at Katniss for fear of what I’ll see, I turn on our former mentor, who, upon seeing the wildness in my eyes, promptly grabs Katniss by the arm and pulls her behind him.

"Take a step back, boy."

"You . . . _no._ ” Raking trembling hands through my hair, I stumble towards the sink, realizing only after I lift my arms that I'm sweating profusely, that I must look and smell _disgusting_. "Haymitch, how _could_ you?"

"Peeta--"

Katniss starts to speak, but Haymitch cuts her off with a sharp shake of his head.

"Let’s all just calm the fuck down."

"You _promised_ ," I bellow, and slam my fist onto the counter, instantly regretting it when my head begins to pound twice as hard as before. "Haymitch, what the _fuck?"_

But then I catch sight of the way Katniss is staring at me from behind his shoulder, fear and revulsion written in the roundness of her eyes, and the words drain from my mouth, shame and a sick sense of panic swelling to take their place. Cursing again, I yank on the ends of my hair, suddenly not caring how much it hurt.

"Get Dr. What's-his-name on the phone," Haymitch mutters to Katniss. “Quickly.”

I glare at him, chest heaving. He doesn't move, continuing to track me like some sort of rabid dog until she’s left the room.

"We had a fucking _deal_ ," I spit, hands clenching into fists where they grip the edge of the sink. "You and me. You were supposed to get her _out_ so she wouldn't--"

He grunts, shaking his head as if I’m getting on his nerves. "I remember."

"Then why--"

"Tried."

The shrug he gives me is made all the more _infuriating_ by the knowledge either of us could have tossed Katniss over our shoulder easily as a bag of flour and carried her from the room whether she _liked_ the idea or not.

And Haymitch must see this in my eyes because he immediately adds, "Sweetheart wouldn't go."

And for one fleeting instant, the warm sensation returns to my chest, the unfamiliar tingling from when she was pressed up against my back, hugging me fiercely. But just as quickly, it's gone, anger and embarrassment I'd made such a complete _ass_ of myself surging to take its place. I'm still gaping like a fish, at a loss for what to say when Katniss returns to the room.

"Dr. Aurelius wants to talk to you." She holds out the phone, carefully avoiding my eyes.

I swallow hard and ball my hands into fists, understanding things were probably over between us before anything even had the chance to start, that I'd ruined _everything_.

"C'mon, boy," Haymitch urges when several seconds pass and I still haven’t answered. He grabs the phone from Katniss and tries to hand it off to me, but I back away, refusing to take it.

"Tell him I'll call him from my house." Turning away before I can see Katniss’ wounded expression, I storm from the room. "And don't either of you fucking follow me."

 

* * *

 

_Aster._

"So, Mr. Mellark, any interest in talking today?"

For the fourth time in as many sessions, I shrug, not bothering to look up.

Dr. Lucius leans back in his chair, studying me from behind a sleek glass desktop. After a full minute goes by and I fail to respond, he shakes his head and picks up the flat screen he was using when I entered the room.

"I understand you've been having trouble sleeping the past few nights."

It isn't hard to guess where that information came from, either one of the nurses or the video feed from my room. He's no doubt also aware my flashbacks have increased in frequency, even if I haven’t exactly been volunteering much to anyone on my treatment team these days.

We spend the next half hour ignoring each other. Out of sheer boredom, my gaze drifts around his office. Everything in it looks expensive and pretentious, just like the clothes he wears. Stiff, uncomfortable chairs. An angular vase with a few pale yellow flowers. Framed black and white photographs of the Capitol on prominent display. I grunt under my breath, unable to help but wonder what his reaction had been to the screaming Avoxes and nightmarish maelstroms hanging in the office down the hall.

Unlike Dr. Aurelius, he comes across as pure Capitol. Early thirties. Hair smoothly styled. An all-knowing lift to his chin. Slim not from any want of nourishment, but from downing the tiny glasses they serve at parties to rid yourself of all the delicacies you’ve consumed before they can ruin your figure.

"I'm not sure how long you intend to keep this up.” Breaking the silence, Dr. Lucius sets the screen aside. “Or what it is you hope to accomplish. So far all you’ve managed to do is to waste valuable time, yours and mine."

I pick at the bandage on the back of my hand. The first two days, we met in my room. He asked questions. I folded my arms and refused to utter a word. After that, he had me brought up to his office so at least he could catch up on other things while I sat there defiantly and glared at the wall. But now it’s been almost a week since Haymitch came to see me. He hasn’t been back, and with my recreation time currently on restriction because of the incident downstairs, I spend most of the day trying to figure out what’s happening to Katniss. Trying _not_ to picture her tied to a post like Snow, waiting for her execution to be carried out.

I take a breath, all but certain I’m going to regret what I’m about to do. "Tell me what's happening to her."

Dr. Lucius laces his fingers, clearly unsurprised by the request despite it being the first thing I've said to him all week. "To Katniss? Didn’t you and Aurelius already go over that?"

Ignoring the question, I scan his desk on the off chance it might hold anything new, gaze accidentally falling, not for the first time, on the picture of him with another man in the far corner. "Has her trial started? Is that why Dr. Aurelius couldn't see me in the mornings?"

Dr. Lucius leans back in his chair. "That's essentially three questions. When you haven’t been answering any of mine."

I’m mentally prepared to spend the rest of the hour memorizing the precise color of his wall, when without warning he raps his knuckles against the desktop.

"I'll make you a deal.”

“What sort of deal?” I counter suspiciously.

“We've got roughly half your session left. You agree to cooperate and give truthful responses to the best of your ability, and I'll answer one question for you at the end of the session. And another tomorrow if you attend the group therapy session tonight after dinner."

I frown. "Which one?"

"The one you’d be attending is mostly other trauma survivors. It meets Mondays and Thursdays. Aurelius says he’s been trying to convince you to go for--”

“No, which _question?”_

“Oh.” He shrugs as if it couldn’t possibly matter less, as if Katniss herself was immaterial to the issue at hand, rather than _everything_ we were talking about, and my dislike for him instantly triples. “You can pick, I suppose.”

We lock eyes, the words forming before I can stop them. "And why should I trust you?"

But to my surprise, he doesn't appear offended by the question at all, merely amused.

"That’s fair to wonder. It’s possible I could be lying. I suppose it would be a risk you’d have to take.” He cocks his head to one side. “Out of curiosity, what was it that made you first start trusting Aurelius?"

I stare at the edge of his desk until my vision grows blurry and I've clenched my fists so tightly they’re starting to hurt.

"I don't want to talk about him."

Dr. Lucius allows the silence to stretch, voice surprisingly absent its usual condescension when he continues. “So, what, you intend to prolong this stalemate indefinitely? Be confined here in this facility forever? I can’t say that seems like a very well thought out plan.”

I pick at my hand again, a habit I’ve regressed into so much over the past few days that the skin around Katniss’ scar is a dull red. It’s not the first time I’ve considered what he’s saying, and pissed as I am at all of them, there’s no denying I’ve pretty much backed myself into a corner.

"He--"

I falter, the part of me that starts to grudgingly tell him something about the sketchbook and the pencils immediately shouted down by a louder, angrier voice, one that insists I never should have trusted Dr. Aurelius at all.

"I just did."

Dr. Lucius regards me silently from across the desk. "And you wouldn't consider sitting down with him to discuss what happened last week?"

"I _know_ what happened."

It comes out sharper than I intend, and I'm just opening my mouth to insist Dr. Aurelius lied to me when it hits me what game is being played here.

"Can I go back to my room?"

We stare at each other. And then Dr. Lucius leans forward.

"In a minute. You indicated to Aurelius that you wanted him to be straight with you. Did you mean it?"

I don’t respond.

Dr. Lucius leans back in his chair. "I'm aware my particular style may not be one that suits you. Regardless, I worry you may not have a clear understanding of just how difficult it would be for _any_ of the doctors here on staff to simply pick up where you and Aurelius left off. Not given the severity of the hijacking and other complicating factors surrounding your case."

I digest this in silence. "You're saying I'd have to start over?"

"More than that." He levels me with a look. "Each of us has our own areas of expertise that we've developed over the years. Sub-specialties within the field, if you will. Aurelius was the one chosen to lead your treatment team because his skillset uniquely suits him to the task. From the start, he insisted there was a way to accomplish what many, at that point, were swearing was impossible."

I don't rise to the bait, not finding it particularly difficult to imagine who that list might include.

Dr. Lucius peers out at the busy Capitol streets. "I don't know all the details of what happened. He’s restricted access to most of his notes on you for confidentiality purposes. I do know that I wouldn't be so quick to sever ties with someone who truly cared about my recovery over what most of the people I've spoken to agree was just the latest in a long line of drunken fuck ups by Haymitch Abernathy."

"He _lied_ to me." The words burst out before I can stop them.

Dr. Lucius studies me for a beat. "That's your perception of what happened, yes." His communication device buzzes, and he pulls it briefly from his pocket to type something in. "Kind of an odd one, Aurelius. Always has been with that," he waves a hand absently, "preoccupation with the Avoxes and whatnot."

I stare out his window, saying nothing.

"But he's very perceptive. Has the ideal mind for this sort of thing. Narrows in on the details most people overlook and is very rarely wrong.” There’s a pause, and then his voice changes. “You know, it's interesting to note that in part of the written analysis on your sessions he _hasn't_ blocked access to, he almost predicted something like this would happen weeks ago."

"That I wouldn't appreciate being lied to?" I scoff. "What amazing insight."

Dr. Lucius gives me a tolerant smile. "Actually it was after your altercations with several of the nurses.” He tilts his head. “Would you like to hear his theory?"

"No," I answer flatly.

Clearly amused by my response, he goes back to fiddling with his touch screen until a knock sounds at the door. I'm halfway out into the hall when he clears his throat.

"Think about what I said, Peeta. I'll have someone stop by your room in case you decide to join the group."

Decima doesn’t comment on my expression when I step out into the hall. The orderly with her is a dark-skinned Avox I don't recognize. Without a word, we fall into formation with them flanking me on either side, and start down the hall.

"I have something for you."

The frown forms automatically, it not being particularly hard to guess who whatever _it_ was probably came from, and I open my mouth, ready to make a snide retort when something thumps me in the chest. I look down. My sketchbook. And a rice sack. Nothing else. And before I can stop the impulse, I've snatched it from her hands.

We're almost back to my room when it occurs to me to say something, that even if she was wrong to take it from me in the first place, continuing to ignore her won't get me any closer to being released from the long list of restrictions that had been, at least until the incident downstairs, nothing but an unpleasant memory from my first weeks here.

"Thank you," I mumble, more to the floor than her.

Decima swipes her badge and opens my door. "You're welcome. Lunch is in just a bit and then someone will take you to physical therapy. Do you need anything before then?"

I fidget. "How long until I can have my pencils back?"

She folds her arms, smoothing a wrinkle in her sweater. "I’ll ask. Anything else?"

I shake my head, anxious to be left alone so I could make sure all my sketches of Katniss were still there and unharmed.

But once the door shuts and I’m finished leafing through them, having settled back against the pillows to study the half-completed sketch I’d been working on just before Haymitch interrupted me in the kitchen, the nervous, slightly queasy feeling returns.

I frown over at the rice sack, but reluctantly pick it up, fighting the temptation to touch my hand. Hadriana had been the one to clean and check the scar the past two days, and there's no way she hadn't been the informant. The grains shift as I move it from hand to hand, for a second drawing to mind smooth white sand trickling between my fingers. Tossing it on my bedside table, I lie down and turn my back to the camera in the room’s far corner, slowly tracing the scar from Katniss’ teeth and staring out at the gray winter sky.

 

* * *

 

_Olive._

The bag packed with Thirteen's standard-issue military gear sits on the bench beside me, serving as a rather unappreciative audience as I methodically twist a length of rope over and around. In and out. In a place where I trust practically no one, particularly not the voices in my head, I’ve begun whispering the words like a mantra, until I hear them in my sleep, my hands manipulating unseen loops tighter and tighter until eventually the rope reaches the point of nearly strangling itself . . . which should be some sort of sick joke, except it’s _not._

"Heard you were being shipped out."

It's impossible to keep the shock from my face, and I immediately regret it when Haymitch grunts and kicks the leg of the bench, a flash of hurt showing in his features. But he quickly erases it and takes a seat at my side.

I nod, slowly unravelling the knot for what must be the twentieth time that day. "Coin decided the propos needed some heating up."

"So I hear." There’s an odd note in his voice.

Frowning, I yank on the end of the rope harder. "You don't want me there."

Haymitch runs a hand over cheeks badly in need of shaving. "Wish neither one of you had to be that close to--"

"That's not what I mean and you know it," I interrupt. "You don't want me anywhere near _her_." I jerk at the rope, jaw growing tight. "And _she_ probably likes having me out of the way so she doesn't have to feel bad while she's sucking face with Ga--"

"You have any idea how fucking ridiculous you sound?" Haymitch makes a sound under his breath. "Surprised the girl hasn't gotten fed up with the both of you by now."

I swallow, staring across the empty room, the heady, buzzing sensation that had come in a rush the moment they told me I would be seeing her again noticeably dimmer. Haymitch lowers his head, saying nothing.

"She just . . . left." Careful not to inflect the statement one way or the other, I knot the rope and rub my thumbs over the bumps. "Didn't even say _goodbye_."

Haymitch shrugs.

"Sweetheart protects those she loves the only way she knows how. And most of the time, winds up making an even bigger mess of things."

_"Mellark."_

We both glance up at the voice from the doorway, and with only a brief look exchanged, rise from the bench. I follow the guard wordlessly, Haymitch accompanying me. He waits until we’re at the hovercraft to reach for my arm.

"Look, boy--"

We come to a stop, and he shoves his hands in his pockets, clearly not intent on hugging me this time around. Mirroring his posture, I move off to the side when two soldiers come through with a transport bearing supplies, waiting for him to speak.

He clears a sudden roughness in his throat. "Just stay alive."

And goes.

 

* * *

 

_Saff, Laurel._

At some point during the night, I roll over and punch my pillow, unable to get comfortable. From the give of the cushion beneath my arm and cheek, I vaguely register that I'm on the couch downstairs, surmise that I must have forgotten to take off my prosthetic before falling asleep. But it isn't until something soft and dense lands on the floor close to my head, and I catch the glint of moonlight reflecting off a lone glass of water left out on the coffee table that everything comes rushing back.

_"Fuck."_

Sitting up on an elbow, I grab the water and gulp down three quarters of it. I locate my pants a few feet away on the floor and am just tugging them on when, in the chair beside me, Haymitch stirs.

"What?" he mumbles, still half asleep. Blinking in recognition when he sees me, he drops his knife next to one of my lamps with a clatter. "Boy . . . how's your head?"

"Fine," I answer curtly, feeling the tiniest bit guilty when I see the damp washcloth on the floor and realize he must have been the one who broke off ice chips and put it on my head after the medicine kicked in and knocked me out for a few hours. And then refilled my water glass, knowing I always woke up thirsty. "Look, I have to go--"

"Sit down," he orders, ignoring the face I make in response. "I'm not talking about the headache here. I mean all that other . . . _stuff_."

He waves a few fingers vaguely in my direction, and I can’t help but roll my eyes. For as fucked up as I am, Dr. Aurelius would have a field day trying to dissect all of Haymitch’s issues. _If_ the two of them were on good terms these days, which I was fairly sure they _weren't_.

"I'm _fine_ ," I repeat evenly, buttoning my shirt and sitting down like he'd asked even if it was only to tie my shoes. "I have to go check on Katniss. She's probably pissed at me. And neither one of us can sleep without--"

But Haymitch shakes his head. "You and I need to talk about a few things first."

Still annoyed at him, I push off the couch. "Not now. I'll come over tomorrow at breakfast. We can have it out then."

He mutters something in response, but by then I'm already out the door. There's no hint of dawn on the horizon, just a vast, inky sky speckled with thousands of glittering diamond stars. Glad to find Katniss' front door left unlocked, I hurry inside and take off my shoes, making my best attempt to move quietly on the stairs.

But when I gingerly ease open the door to her bedroom and see her small form bathed in moonlight, I know she heard me, if only by the way she curls tighter into a ball. Even Buttercup seems to understand I'm the one who fucked things up, watching me pull the shirt over my head and kick off my pants from a protective perch near Katniss' feet, golden bottlebrush tail swishing warningly.

She doesn't protest when I slide in behind her and slip an arm around her waist, pulling her into my chest like we're two spoons tucked together in a drawer. And as I feel, rather than hear, the whimper start somewhere in her shoulders, tears undoubtedly not far behind, I hug her tighter.

"I'm sorry," I murmur into the back of her neck.

She sniffles quietly, but it's not hard to tell she's trying to blot her cheeks on the pillowcase without my noticing. Sighing, I smooth her hair back.

"Katniss, please look at me."

I whisper it against the shell of her ear, wishing more than anything that things could have been different, that I could have just let her kiss me at the lake. But if anything, tonight only proved how far we still have to go. That I’m as screwed up as she is, if not far more.

Katniss lets out a sad little huff, but turns in my arms so our foreheads are almost touching on the pillow. I swallow, smoothing strands of her hair.

"I'm sorry I yelled." Nervously taking in her every reaction, my heart sinks when her gaze stays stubbornly angled towards my chin. "I didn't want you to see me like that. Haymitch and I, we had an agreement. He was supposed to--"

But Katniss frowns, eyes finally lifting to mine.

"How often are they happening?"

I take a breath, stomach jerking miserably.

“You mean, um--?”

"Your episodes."

I can’t look at her. “I don't know. It varies. More, if I'm stressed or upset about something."

She sits up in bed and peers down at me, and I notice then that she's still wearing the same clothes she had on at dinner. "How many have there been since you came back?"

"I don't know," I answer quietly, suddenly on edge.

Katniss sets her jaw, expression darkening. I follow her gaze across the room to the curtains swaying gently back and forth in the cool night wind. I cautiously sit up too, fairly certain I'm going to be sick. Because as far as she knows, I've had maybe two or three flashbacks since coming home in mid-April, when really the number is probably closer to nine or ten.

"How many?"

I shrug evasively. "A few."

Her voice hardens. "Tell me the truth."

"They're getting less frequent, and they aren't as severe as before.” I play with the edge of her quilt. “But I still have one every couple of weeks. Dr. Aurelius agrees with what the doctors told me in Thirteen . . . that they probably won't ever completely go away--"

The words die in my throat when I see the look on her face. And for one sickening moment as I watch disgust, fear, and revulsion furrow her brow, I'm sure she's going to push back the covers and bolt out the door, lock herself in one of the spare bedrooms until I'm gone--

"So you've been lying to me all this time?"

The question is low, almost a growl, and as stormy gray eyes bore into mine, I realize that I've read her entirely wrong. That it wasn't fear or disgust I'd seen at all, but _fury_.

I squirm, hesitating a second too long. "I didn't _lie_ to you--"

Katniss makes a sharp sound under her breath, and I fall silent. Because both of us know Haymitch will cave if she presses him, that sooner or later the truth would come out about some of the afternoons I let her believe I was upstairs _painting_ and didn't come to the door when she knocked. Or she would figure out some of our sillier disagreements had been ones I purposefully started because I could feel an episode coming on and wanted her to leave me alone for a while.

"You still don't trust me," she whispers, the words laced so thick with hurt, with _defeat_ , that I feel an immediate surge of guilt.

"That's not true," I start to argue, but Katniss shakes her head, face growing hard.

"You can talk to Haymitch, but not to me."

She mumbles it, staring out at the open window. I scrub a hand over my face.

"Katniss--"

Her eyes lift to mine, red and obviously puffy from crying, and I lower my head, knowing she won't like any excuse I have to give.

"I don't _talk_ to Haymitch. Not really. Mostly he comes over and yells at me," I say evenly. "And I do trust you. We _have_ been talking. You _know_ we have."

And in the silence that follows, I know that fact isn't completely lost on her either. That it hadn't been any easier for me to describe what it was like to hear the guards entering Annie's cell, and the sickening sounds that followed, or to listen to Johanna's caustic jeers turn to screams, the howls that sounded like some sort of animal once they began the electrical shocks forever seared into my memory. It had killed me to watch the horror and hopelessness reflected in Katniss’ eyes, an injury I would have gladly spared her a thousand times over if not for her insistence she _needed_ to know, that no matter how much it hurt, she didn’t want us separated by anything ever again.

I exhale, starting to shrug. But surprisingly, an answer forms on the tip of my tongue, drifting up from some dark recess where I'd hidden it away, and with it, something Dr. Aurelius had said to me as we walked together in the rooftop gardens on one of my final days in the Capitol, that intimacy cannot take root without honesty as its base.

"I didn’t want you to leave." The words come out jumbled and much too fast, but as soon as they're free, something seems to unknot in my chest. And so I close my eyes and continue. "Like before."

Katniss sucks in a breath, seeming to shrink smaller as she hugs herself around the middle. And that’s when I know I've hurt her. Hesitant, I reach out, but she leans away.

"Katniss--"

"But I _didn’t_. I stayed."

She lifts her head, and in the moonlight, I can see fresh tears glistening on her lashes. The unfamiliar warmth from earlier returns, flipping somersaults in my stomach.

"I know," I whisper. "I'm sorry." Because she had stayed. And for that matter, so had Haymitch.

When I reach for her hand again, she lets me take it, but there’s something guarded in the hunch of her shoulders, the angle of her mouth clearly wounded. I study her profile in the dark, watching her bite her lip and start to speak three times before finally going through with it.

“You act like you’re--“

Trailing off, she closes her eyes, frustration darkening her features. I take a breath.

“Katniss--”

She pulls away, glaring at me. “I stopped sleeping while you were gone. Stopped eating. I hid from them. Screamed when they held me down. Drugged me.”

I scoot closer, brushing away the tear trailing past the edge of her nose. We sit like that for a minute, me tracing the pad of my thumb softly along the smooth apple of her cheek until she blinks and looks away.

"Then you were rescued and they said they wanted to try using Delly to see how you reacted." Katniss chews her lip, voice bitter. "And I said I wanted to be there."

She won’t look at me. My actual memories from my first week in Thirteen, when the venom levels were at their highest, are garbled at best, but I know from having watched the recorded video feed with Dr. Aurelius what she must have seen. Me, mottled by a grotesque patchwork of lacerations and bruises, struggling against the restraints and shouting that she was a fucking liar. A killer. A _mutt_. That the firebombing that had destroyed District Twelve was her fault. Continuing to strain against the straps, screaming mangled fragments from the hijacking at whomever was unfortunate enough to be listening in until I was eventually knocked out.

"That's when you asked them to send you to Two?" I finish quietly, thumb skirting an unsteady path along the edge of hers.

Katniss swallows, studying out joined hands. "You don’t know . . . how much I hated myself for it. Later."

But part of me _does_ know, understands, the part that lies awake some nights while she sleeps in my arms, watching the slow rise and fall of her back, the way the moonlight caresses her hair in soft silver waves, sick with the worry that it was all just too much, everything that happened between us before. That she would never be able to truly want me after what I'd done. That she would be no different than the rest of them.

And it's on the days when she lies listlessly with her head in my lap, unresponsive to gentle murmurs of her name or the trail of fingers through her hair, that I see the silent markers of self-loathing reflected in her eyes, the belief that on some quiet, terrible level, everything that happened to those around her was somehow her fault. Most gut-wrenching of all, that it all came down to some critical flaw, making her just a little worse than the rest of us, somehow more damnable. Not worth the shreds of happiness Sae, Haymitch or I might try to carve out for ourselves. Not worthy of surviving where so many people she loved had not.

"It was your voice.” The room is suddenly very still, and I focus on our fingers, clasped together tightly in my lap. "Tonight. That brought me out of it."

At first, she doesn't respond. But then I feel her pinkie finger twitch like the smallest flutter of a moth’s wing against my palm. I peer into her face.

"I'm sorry."

Katniss chews her lip, still unwilling to meet my eyes. But when I squeeze her hand, the lines at the corner of her mouth soften. She allows me to fold her into my arms, tucking her head under my chin and running her hands slowly up and down my back.

Enjoying how closely we're pressed together, I drink in the scent of her hair before touching my lips lightly to her forehead. "We should try to get some sleep."

She pushes the covers back and I unlatch my prosthetic. When I slide in beside her, I feel the cool brush of fingertips whispering across my temple.

"Do you want me to rub your forehead?"

It’s something she knows I like for many reasons, the relief it brings from my headaches only managing a spot in the top three. But tonight I lick my lips, turning towards her in the dark.

"I just want to hold you."

For a second neither of us move, the sound of her hushed exhalation against my cheek seeming to echo in the darkened room. And then she catches my fingers, snuggling back into me while draping my arm over her waist, the two of us tightly spooned.

“Is this okay?” I whisper once we’re settled, getting a mouthful of hair when she nods in response.

I smooth it out of the way, pressing a soft kiss to the back of her head as her breathing starts to slowly relax.

 

* * *

 

 _Rowan, Alice, Kael_.

When the door opens just before seven, I'm waiting with my shoes on and head down, having spent much of the previous half hour alternating between pacing and making trips to the bathroom, unsure if the churning sensation in my gut was more due to the need to pee or puke.

"You ready?"

I glance up, frowning. “You’re taking me?”

“Yes,” Decima answers patiently, even though that should have probably been obvious.

"Isn’t there a shift change at seven?"

She folds her arms and leans against the doorjamb. "There are two Avoxes who attend this group and only a few people here understand sign well enough to interpret. Aemilia will meet us there once she clocks in."

Giving me a few seconds to digest this information, she hooks her thumb towards the door as a hint we needed to go. I ignore her, twirling a loose thread from the edge of my bandage.

"How many people usually come?"

Decima pushes up her glasses. "It varies. Eight to ten, usually."

I swallow, knowing she can probably tell I'm considering bailing on the whole idea from the way my hands are shaking. "What's it like?"

Her eyes narrow a little as if she knows it's a test to see if Dr. Aurelius lied about _this,_ too. "People go around the circle and talk during the first part. Most of the time they start with something about why they're here. Then there’s usually an assigned topic for the night. One of the trainee physicians on staff, Dr. Alexander, will moderate."

I pick at my hand. "I don't know him."

“He’s nice.” She tilts her head. "What is it that you’re worried about?"

I fidget. "Does _everyone_ have to talk?"

Her expression softens. "No one will make you say anything if you don't want to.”

And this time, when she taps her watch, I shove both hands in my pockets and reluctantly follow her out the door. We stop at the nurse's station so she can make note of where we’re going.

"You never told me _you_ could sign."

Decima doesn’t react. I study her profile, not missing the look exchanged by two nurses in the background. She sets down the pen and raises an eyebrow.

"Ready?"

The hallway is fairly quiet, just a few orderlies pushing carts, and I don’t say much as she leads me down the corridor where the visitor rooms are located.

"So who taught you?"

We reach the door at the end of the hall, which she opens. "Dr. Aurelius."

I make a face, but she doesn’t notice.

The couches and chairs have been arranged in a somewhat open circle, and there's a table with cups and a plastic pitcher of water off to one side. I survey the room to see if anyone looks familiar, vaguely recognizing one of the men in a wheelchair from my early weeks in physical therapy, before Dr. Aurelius determined I wasn't able to handle a large group environment or exposure to potential triggers, and needed to have my sessions scheduled alone, and Felix, who's about my age and sometimes sits by me or offers to play a game during recreation time.

Noticing me come in, Felix pauses in signing something to another guy slightly older than either of us to wave. I start to go over to them, but a tall man claps his hands and rises from the sofa he was leaning against.

"Let's get started, shall we?"

Everyone else shuffles towards the chairs. Mouth suddenly drier than if I’d swallowed a handful of sand, I stop at the table in the corner to pour a cup of water, and by then, most of the spots have been taken. I end up two chairs away from Felix, Decima, and the other Avox, whose name I still don’t know. There’s a slight woman whose hair is brittle and pink on the ends but showing several inches of blonde at the roots. She flinches when I sit down, and I start to offer to move, but she quickly flashes an apologetic smile, so I stay.

"Sometimes it's tempting to focus only on what _isn't_ going well, the parts of us that still feel broken." The man who must be Dr. Alexander glances around the circle. Even if it wasn't for the fact he was one of the few besides Decima not wearing the psych floor's standard-issue blue pants and shirt, it would still be obvious he was different. Calmer. Radiating strength. Maybe the only person in the room who seemed like he genuinely _wanted_ to be there. "But every person sitting here made the decision to come tonight when they could have just stayed in their room."

He smiles in my direction, and I choose that moment to mess with my sleeve, not quite able to return it. "Unless someone else wants to begin, I’m happy to start."

The silence that follows feels eerily similar to that at the reaping. But he doesn't seem fazed. Or maybe wouldn’t really know, being from the Capitol. Clearing his throat, he nods.

"My name is Dr. Alexander Silverman. I'm twenty-six years old. I live in the Capitol. Eleven years ago, there was a gas leak. A fire. My parents are dead. I survived . . ."

Except for his, the other names blur almost immediately, the vivid, painful details that follow imprinting themselves indelibly into my mind. A shockingly skeletal woman from Two whose husband was killed during an air raid. The man beside her in a wheelchair who'd barely survived his injuries from shrapnel after a pod exploded. A technician from Three whose children never got the medicines that could have saved them. The woman next to me, who was attacked one night by a man she met at a party.

The familiar sound of Decima's voice catches my attention, and I see that Felix has begun to sign.

_". . . was part of a group of students at my school speaking out against the brutality of the Hunger Games. I participated in a protest, and was arrested later that night. My parents begged the Peacekeepers to release me, but they dragged me away. They beat me for hours, gave me an injection to render me sterile, and then cut out my tongue. They told me if I made any attempt to contact my family, my younger brother would suffer the same fate. I was put to work as a janitor in an office building. I didn't see or hear from my family until the war ended four years later."_

Felix sits back in his chair, and it's when he glances over at me that I finally notice the other looks directed my way, realize I'm the only one left in the room who hasn't gone.

"Um . . ."

I finish the rest of my water to stall for time, toying with the idea of telling the truth--that I was only there to get answers about Katniss. Making lists was a dumb exercise Dr. Aurelius had made me do before, insisting it could be helpful in learning to distinguish _real_ from _not real_ during the hazy moments after I emerge from a flashback. But reciting simple facts back to him and feeding them to other people to greedily devour just like they did when Katniss and I had our lives on constant display feels entirely different.

But then my gaze flicks to the woman with short brown hair sitting across the circle from me, a little apart from all the others, and it's hard to miss the shame and resignation that cloud otherwise pretty features. The Peacekeeper who turned a blind eye for months, _years_ , while prisoners were abused. Who never took part in the beatings, but who raised the volume on the old television set in the guard room when the men in her unit would head over to the cell block that housed the female prisoners. Who'd twice tried to kill herself before being forcibly committed, the orderlies that sit just behind her monitoring with even more guardedness than mine.

It's hard not to hate her. To see the faces of the guards and wonder if she’d been there. Heard me. Johanna. Annie. But even as she spoke, as I watched resentment, anger and disgust fester silently throughout the room, it was hard not to acknowledge how difficult it must have been for her to admit her complicity in allowing it to go on as long as she had. In not speaking up.

And so I swallow, staring down at my hands. "My name is Peeta Mellark. I'm from District Twelve. I was . . . in the Hunger Games. Twice. My family died in the firebombings. The Capitol captured and tortured me."

Everyone waits, but I don't go on. And after a minute, Dr. Alexander gently nods.

"Thank you, Peeta." He looks around the circle. "Last week's session dealt with strategies for coping with depression. Tonight we're going to once again get into a topic that can be difficult for many of us--relationships. For anyone who has experienced trauma, it can be challenging to navigate recovery and reestablish a sense of normalcy in its aftermath without some sort of support system, and most of us are here primarily because we've suffered a devastating lo--"

Everyone jerks when Lael, the second Avox sitting with Felix, the one who was imprisoned along with his girlfriend after trying to blow up a government building, and who was tortured for months before finding out she'd died from an injury during the first week, stands without warning and starts for the door. His nurse immediately steps in, as do the orderlies seated a few feet away. One stops him with a hand on his arm, causing him to angrily pull away.

"Wait," Decima interrupts.

She signs something to Lael, who lets out a huff, but sits back down. Looking the slightest bit ruffled, Dr. Alexander talks for a few more minutes, then asks us to break into small groups and discuss different sources of support we might be able to utilize during and after our recovery. The girl beside me with the pink hair immediately gets up to talk to the woman from Two, and after a minute I go over to Felix and Lael.

"Hey."

Felix waves. Lael sets his jaw and stares stubbornly down at the floor, not budging even when Dr. Alexander comes and begins talking quietly to him, and I’m suddenly struck by the understanding this was how _I_ had looked every day in my sessions with Dr. Aurelius. Closed off. Distrustful. Pissed at the world.

I glance up when Felix starts to sign. Decima watches for a few seconds and then begins translating.

_"Kind of a loaded question, huh?"_

I rub the back of my neck. "Yeah. So, uh . . . do you still see them now? You know, your parents?"

He nods.

 _"Yeah. I tried moving back home immediately after President Snow was arrested, but it was . . . hard. To transition to feeling normal again after everything. They just_ couldn't _understand."_

I digest this in silence, picking at the edge of the bandage on my hand. "So, what, they just dumped you in here?"

Felix gives me a funny look, momentarily hesitating before signing a response.

_"No, of course not. My mother had been taking my younger brother to see Dr. Aurelius for several years. He would get upset whenever someone came to the door, started getting in trouble at school . . . I think it was hardest to see what my being gone had done to him. He was like a different person when I came back."_

He waits a minute and then gestures to me. I blow out a breath, unsure of what to say. That I would have given anything for Katniss to _want_ to be more than just a support system, if we could even be called that any more. To want me for more than just the comfort of sleeping in my arms, like she had on the train. That Haymitch was probably off getting drunk somewhere. That I had Delly. Johanna. Annie. And that everyone else I knew, anyone who might have cared about me even a little, was most likely dead.

"I--"

We both turn at the sound of the door opening. Dr. Aurelius meets my eyes, but I quickly look away. He comes over to crouch in front of Lael while I pick at the back of my hand and try not to appear interested.

His fingers move swiftly, but with small, fluid gestures, a calmness Lael's response is noticeably lacking when he finally grunts, and begins to angrily slash at the air.

Dr. Aurelius waits, simply listening until Lael finishes and folds his arms with a frustrated huff. And even though I don't _want_ to look, we’re sitting so close that it’s kind of hard not to. Dr. Aurelius signs something else and Lael shrugs, red-faced and clearly ashamed as he wipes his ruddy cheeks on his shirtsleeve. But after a moment, he stands and allows Dr. Aurelius to escort him from the room.

I rub my toe over a scuff on the floor, unable to put a name to the tightness forming in my chest.

I don't say much the rest of the hour, and when it's over and we're walking back, I nod goodbye to Felix, whose room is down a different hallway from mine. He signs something to Decima, who touches his arm.

"I'll ask him."

We're almost to my room when I give in to curiosity, the question having bugged me all night. "What does the first sign he just did mean?"

She raises an eyebrow, and I feign sudden interest in a poster on the wall promoting the benefits of thorough handwashing.

"It was one of the ones I kept seeing."

We reach my room, Decima seeming to debate how best to answer.

"Avoxes usually have a particular sign for their names, since spelling out the letters every time you want to refer to someone gets tedious." She repeats the motions slowly. "Dr. Aurelius' is a combination of the signs for _sun_ , and since he was one of the early activists that sought out the Avoxes back when Snow first instituted the practice of cutting out tongues after the second Quarter Quell, _teacher_."

I frown. "Why _sun_?"

She keys open the door and motions me inside. "It’s one of his tattoos." I must give her a strange look, because she smiles in obvious amusement. “I’m sure he’d tell you about it if you asked.”

I sink onto the bed and toe off my shoes.

Decima tucks her hair behind one ear. "Do you need anything else?"

"The pencils?" Katniss shimmers like a ghostly shadow on the back of my eyelids, and I can already tell it's going to be another unbearable night of staring out at the Capitol, worrying what's being done to her.

Decima folds her arms. "He said he needed to discuss it further with the rest of your team.”

I nod glumly, and after a minute, she goes. I shower. Poke through the stack of books Hadriana brought from the recreation room, which up until now had been sitting pointedly ignored on my bedside table. Open my sketchbook and study the first sketch I'd drawn of Katniss, the one from the school yard where she stood clutching the first dandelion of spring. But before I can lift a finger to trace the outline of her face, there's a soft knock at the door.

I quickly flip my sketchbook closed. Dr. Aurelius stops in the doorway.

"Peeta, may I come in for a moment?"

Shrugging, I rub my fingertip along one edge of the sketchbook. But it's not a particularly convincing gesture of refusal, and both of us know it. He closes the door and leans against the wall, foregoing his usual chair.

"I wanted to come check on you, make sure you were doing all right." He waits, but I still don’t look at him, embarrassment over the way I'd reacted the two previous times he'd tried to stop by and talk to me warring with anger, and leaving me feeling all jumbled up inside. "I was pleased to see you decided to come to the group tonight."

Instead, I pick at the bandage on the back of my hand. "Don't you ever go home?"

True to form, Dr. Aurelius ignores the question. "You asked Decima about the pencils?”

“Yes,” I mumble reluctantly.

“If you remember our original agreement, unsupervised use of your art supplies was contingent on you not attempting to harm yourself or anyone else. That's why they haven't yet been returned."

I stare down at my sketchbook, anger silently building, part of me wanting to scream that all I'd done was throw a fucking pan at him. And a stool. After he'd been lying to me for _months_.

"So you're not going to give them back at all?" I ask, emotionless.

Dr. Aurelius shakes his head. "That isn’t what I'm saying. I know being able to draw is important to you both on a personal level, as well as being of value therapeutically. Starting on Sunday you'll be permitted to use them a few hours each day, provided that--"

But I'm no longer listening, suddenly hollow at the mention of therapy and the thought of sitting through more sessions with Dr. Lucius. And as I struggle not to react, it’s impossible to continue denying feeling hurt by the indifference in his voice. Or by the idea of it not bothering him in the slightest if we no longer worked together. Like I was an annoyance. A hassle he was relieved to have off his schedule each day.

"Peeta?"

I flinch, noticing the silence only when Dr. Aurelius frowns and studies me more intently.

"You _lied_ to me."

Dr. Aurelius slowly nods. "I understand that's how it feels to you, but let me pose this question . . . would it have been any more reassuring if you'd had specific information on Katniss' whereabouts for the past two months _knowing_ you wouldn't be allowed to see her or contact her in any way?"

"Yes,” I answer automatically.

"How?" he counters calmly.

Huffing out a breath, I squeeze one hand into a fist, frustration mounting as all the hours, days, and weeks spent worrying flood back in a rush. "I didn't know where she was. You . . . you--"

I wave my hands, glaring, and after a few seconds of flailing for words he finishes for me.

"--gave you as much information as I believed I reasonably could without compromising your treatment and recovery." He waits until I meet his eyes. "I told you Katniss was safe and secure, which is true. No one is allowed into the room where they're holding her. Not me. Not her mother. Not Haymitch. Nor is any outside contact permitted. There would have been nothing you could have done, even if you had been given more deta--"

"I still had a right to know," I interrupt quietly. “It’s _Katniss_. And after everything we’ve been through.”

We stare at each other for what seems like forever. And then he nods.

"Eventually, yes."

I scoff at this. "So now you want me to believe you were planning on telling me the truth? Why should I believe anything you say?"

Dr. Aurelius’ voice is calm. "This is a very old hurt. And I'm sorry for that--"

"Fuck you,” I snap, glaring out at the Capitol skyline.

He doesn't respond, and doesn’t have to, a dozen ghosts rising up to do the honors. Katniss pretending to love me for the cameras. Haymitch raising a bottle across his kitchen table in a grim, unhappy salute. Portia carefully applying makeup and helping me into clothes that hid weeks upon weeks of beatings. My father catching me at the door to slip an extra cookie into my lunch, along with the reminder that if any of my teachers should ask, I got into a scuffle with Rye.

Liars, all.

"If I ask you something, will you tell me the truth this time?" I demand.

Dr. Aurelius folds his arms, regarding me patiently. After a minute passes and he still hasn’t answered, I poke at the edge of my sketchbook.

"Dr. Lucius said you wrote something about me."

He raises an eyebrow. "You’ll have to be more specific. I make notes on all our sessions."

Glowering at him, I pick at the scar on the back of my hand. "Something about Decima and Hadriana. And what you predicted would happen next."

"I see." He waits a beat. "And you're sure this is something you want to hear?"

"Yes."

He stares out at the Capitol skyline, clearly weighing just how much to tell me. "After the second incident, the one with Hadriana in the hallway, I made some notes about possible parallels between the strained relationship you had with your mother and the pattern that seemed to be developing towards harboring resentment against female staff members over relatively trivial things--"

"It wasn't--"

Jaw clenched, I focus on a speck on the bedsheet, fighting to keep my voice calm, _knowing_ if I lost it and started yelling, after the stunt I pulled in the kitchen, he'd have a team of orderlies paged to put me in restraints before I could _blink_.

"It wasn't trivial to _me_ ," I finish evenly.

"I understand that's how you feel. I also think it would be difficult, in your position, not to have a great deal of unresolved anger towards both your parents, as well as feelings of confusion over how to deal with the conflict of loving them, and being devastated by their loss, while feeling betrayed by the callousness with which they treated you. And I think it influences you more than you’re aware."

The room grows very still. And in the silence that follows as I reach over to the nightstand and pick up the rice sack, I don’t even try to laugh his words off, change the subject or tell him to go fuck himself. Swallowing, I shift the grains slowly back and forth from hand to hand.

A minute passes.

"What's happening to Katniss?” I ask softly. “Has her trial started?"

Dr. Aurelius studies me silently. "Peeta, I'm going to answer your questions from this morning, but that is all. Are we agreed?"

I nod.

"Her trial started last week."

"Is it still going on?" I fiddle with the edge of the sheet.

"Yes." Lacing his fingers, he leans against the wall.

"And that's why you couldn't meet with me in the mornings?"

"Yes."

I stare at the mark on the back of my hand. "What's going to happen to her?"

"I don't know." He must see something in my expression, because when I look up he shakes his head. "The team seeing to her defense has done its best to present a compelling case. We should know more in the next few days."

"Will you tell me?" I whisper hoarsely, once again picturing her in front of a firing squad. "If you hear anything? Please . . . it's _Katniss_."

And after a moment, Dr. Aurelius nods. "All right, Peeta."

I let my hands clench into fists, knowing I should thank him, not quite able to when he'd been the one to keep the truth from me in the first place.

Pushing away from the wall, Dr. Aurelius pulls out his communication device and taps something into it. "I'm going to send in one of the nurses to put a dressing on your hand. In the meantime, please stop picking at it."

He ignores the glare I give him and pauses to key open the door. "I'll come check on you tomorrow. Try to get some rest."

I slump against the pillow once he's gone, sleep even less likely than it had been before. The Capitol lights illuminate the night in odd shades of pink, blue, and green, glittering like candy fireflies, and as a wave of worry, loneliness and desperate longing washes over me, I form the silent plea that somewhere out in the city, Haymitch was doing everything within his power to save Katniss.

 

* * *

 

_Autumn, Jakob._

In the eerie artificial glow of fluorescent light, Katniss Everdeen seems even smaller than before, and somehow more fragile, the dark shadows above her cheekbones painfully pronounced. I watch as she shifts slightly against the cement wall, stretching a sore spot in her back, eyes drifting over each sleeping form in turn before finally locking with mine.

Neither of us move. And only when she flinches, blinking, do I remind myself to breathe. She bites her lip, and not for the first time, I wish I knew what she was thinking, whether she suspected I was watching her sleep. _Watching_ , not so much as memorizing the curve of each eyelash, the exact dark cocoa color of her hair, the way her slight frame looked so breakable, so defenseless tucked into the one free space on the floor.

The one next to _Gale_.

Not that I really blamed her, after what I'd done.

"Have you eaten?"

Startled by the question, I instantly relieve the pressure on my wrists. Katniss hands me a can of creamed chicken and white rice, cheeks picking up a trace of color when our fingers brush.

We fall silent as I sit up and swallow a few mouthfuls of the contents without tasting them. It's a cold, slimy meal, and not particularly appetizing, but I'm hungry, and this is far from the worst thing I've forced down rather than starve. And maybe Katniss is thinking the same thing, watching me, because after a minute of trying to sneak surreptitious looks without getting caught, she finally takes a breath.

"Peeta?"

Something flutters in my chest at the sound of my name on her lips, the first time she's said it, _really_ said it since I came back. I pause with the can halfway to my mouth, held captive by the look in her eyes.

Shifting in place, Katniss glances away. "When you asked about what happened to Darius and Lavinia, and Boggs told you it was real, you said you thought so. Because there was nothing _shiny_ about it." She smooths a dark strand of hair off her face, still not quite looking at me. "What did you mean?"

I grunt, shaking the can so the contents shift around. "Oh, I don't know exactly how to explain it." But when seconds pass and she doesn't try again, just chews her bottom lip, it occurs to me that for once she's actually _listening_. And so I decide to throw her a bone. "In the beginning, everything was just complete confusion. Now I can sort certain things out."

She nods, blinking those too large eyes, and this time I'm the one who has to look away.

"I think there's a pattern emerging," I continue hastily, taking another swallow of soup. "The memories they altered with the tracker jacker venom have this . . . strange quality about them . . . like they're too intense or the images aren't stable." I lift my head warily, but she's still watching me. "You remember what it was like when we were stung?"

Our eyes remain locked, hers cast a pale, ghostly silver under the flickering bulb overhead. It’s pretty much our only source of illumination in these dank, foul-smelling tunnels, and one that buzzes in a maddening low drone like some sort of oversized gnat muttation. I shudder, finding it hard not to wonder if we would ever see the light of day again.

"Trees shattered."

She says it so softly I almost miss it. Frowning, she fusses with her sleeve while I try to get at the last of the soup. "There were . . . giant colored butterflies. I fell in a pit of orange bubbles." She pauses, something in her voice changing. "Shiny orange bubbles."

"Right." I pick at the can's label. "But nothing about Darius or Lavinia was like that. I don't think they'd given me any venom yet."

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Something about the question instantly annoys me. As if it were merely a matter of sorting things out and I was just going about it the wrong way. _As usual._ "If you can separate the two, then you can figure out what's true."

It's hard to keep the sarcasm from my tone. "Yes. And if I could grow wings, I could fly." Her expression clouds, just slightly, and I roll my eyes, softening it into a tease. "Only people can't grow wings. Real or not real?"

"Real." Her mouth curves up at the edges. "But people don't need wings to survive."

She's playing with me now. I hide my smile behind the can, finishing off the last of its contents. "Mockingjays do."

Our fingers brush again as she accepts the empty can, and part of me wishes I was only imagining the shiver that tickles its way up my spine.

"There's still time," she says, softer. "You should sleep."

And because I cannot refuse her anything she asks in _that_ voice, I obediently lie back down at her feet, watching the needles on the dials as they twitch in time with some humming machine above us.

I freeze at the first hesitant whisper of fingertips, stomach knotting tight as a board as she reaches down to lightly brush the hair off my forehead. The breath stills in my throat, a silent scream keening wild and deranged in the back of my mind, and I strain against the cuffs until the pain sharpens to the bite of a knife. Until my skin grows sticky and warm. And as I lie there, fighting not to shrink away, I’m made sick by the knowledge I couldn’t protect her, from me, from Snow, from any of it, the fraction of my mind that isn't mad or cowering in terror taking in the softness of her skin, the delicate way her fingers curl as they reach the edge of my forehead, playing over each strand like she’s examining a bolt of finest silk.

Her hand lifts away, and in the second it takes for it to return, the brief flicker of relief followed by a crushing roar of desperation so depthless I might never escape, I come to understand how completely Katniss Everdeen owns some part of me, that despite everything she’s done, my body still craved her in the same way my lungs sought their next breath.

I don't move, allowing her to toy with my curls as the others sleep, inhaling the scent of her skin with each brush past my temple. Soft. Earthy and clean as a meadow after a fresh spring rain. It’s then that I realize just how tired I am, how tired I’ve been for a long time. Thoughts begin to swim and my limbs grow heavy. But even as I slip away, a question forces its way to the surface, forming on my lips as I feel myself drifting off.

"You're still trying to protect me. Real or not real?"

"Real."

Her fingers don't alter their path, stroking lightly. As if she could do this for hours. And when my eyes flutter open, her face is slack.

"Because that's what you and I do."

The whisper is low, but I still hear it. Clearer than the bite of the cuffs. Stronger than the pull of the venom. Louder than all the voices insisting everything between us was just for show. Because despite every horrible thing we’d said, every hurt and every betrayal, some things still feel certain.

"Protect each other."

Katniss smooths the hair back from my eyes, voice hushed with the unmistakable ring of truth. And with her fingers twirling through my hair, body curved protectively over mine, I allow myself to claim a few minutes’ rest.

 

* * *

 

_Lea, Fennel, Maggie._

For once, we both sleep well.

I wake when Katniss stirs in my arms. In no hurry to move, she yawns and arches her back, languid and lazy as Buttercup stretching out after a nap. Nuzzling the bare shoulder that brushes past my chin, I blink at the first rays of sunlight dancing across our shared pillow, shifting away from her just enough that she won't notice I've woken up hard.

She lets out a little whine of protest, grabbing my arm and wriggling back in search of her stolen source of heat.

"Um, Kat. I--"

It’s obvious she feels it from the way she immediately tenses, a second passing with my cock pressing into the soft curve of her bottom before she quickly releases my arm.

Rolling away from her, I debate stealing one of her pillows and making a break for the bathroom, but decide that would only make things more uncomfortable. I scrub a hand over my face, laughing weakly.

"Sorry. It's, uh . . . you know. Morning."

Katniss flips over to stare at the ceiling and awkwardly clears her throat. "Right."

We lie there, the silence deafening. Katniss twirls a strand of her hair and I glance over, wondering if she worried from our positioning, or from what had happened the night before that I might have done it on purpose. Been humping her while she slept to get off, or worse, that mutt-Peeta harbored fantasies of forcing himself on her while she was at her most vulnerable point.

I'm seconds from asking if she wants anything in particular for breakfast, possibly before shutting myself in my house for the next month, when she blurts, "There's something I have to ask you."

"Okay," I answer uneasily.

"Last night, your . . . episode." Katniss chews her lip. "Was it something I . . . I mean, did I say something that--?"

"No." I reach for her hand, fighting to conceal a palpable rush of relief. "It's nobody's fault that I have them. Well, except the people who tortured me, and as far as we know, they're all dead now anyway."

She falls silent, brow furrowed. Propping herself on one elbow, she toys with my fingers, the stubbornness in the set of her jaw stirring warmth in my stomach, _this_ Katniss Everdeen one I've missed.

"It's something Dr. Aurelius and I talk about a lot," I begin carefully. "That even if I'm able to positively identify a trigger, it's not always so clear-cut."

Katniss waits for me to go on, eyes sliding to mine when I don't. "So . . ."

I shift to face her, tucking one arm under the pillow. "Usually it's something that's been on my mind. Something that needed to get out."

She doesn’t say anything. And as we stare at one another, it's impossible to deny that for once, there’s a part of me that _wants_ to tell her, to stay right here, in her bedroom, enveloped in the safe cocoon of warmth from the night before and let her in.

Swallowing, I trace her thumb. "It's been . . . working on the book has been bringing things up. All the things we talked about with your father," I take a breath, studying our linked hands, "they make me miss mine."

She opens her mouth like she's about to say something, but I lift a finger to her lips.

"I’m not ready to do his page, and I don't want to do Boggs’ either. Not yet, anyway." We sit in silence for a long moment while I run my fingertips across the back of her hand, trying to choose the right words. "I know you were close to him . . . that he was important to you . . . but I didn't really know him, and--"

I trail off. Katniss lowers herself onto the pillow, mirroring my positioning. Her fingers delicately stroke the scarred skin of my forehead, combing the hair away from my eyes.

"We’ll wait."

I nod silently. She continues smoothing back my hair, scooting closer so her arm can rest comfortably between us on the pillow.

"It reminds me of the day I was rescued." I watch Katniss blink in surprise at my confession, and quickly look away. "When you came running in to see me, and," the memory forms a hard lump in my throat, shame turning to humiliation when the words waver, "and I just _attacked_ you. Like some kind of animal. Would have _killed_ you if he hadn't--"

"Stop," she orders, scowling. "It wasn’t your fault."

I bark out a harsh laugh. Katniss sits up, dragging my hands away when I try to rub my face. But I shake her off, embarrassed when my nose starts to burn, and desperate not to cry in front of her.

An excruciating minute crawls by in silence.

“That’s not how I see you,” she says at last.

I shrug, not looking up.

"Last night, during your episode?” Katniss plays with a strand of her hair, and out of the corner of my eye, I watch her cheeks pick up color, “I thought you were so . . . strong."

 _"Strong?"_ Though I try to inflect the question with something between disinterest and disbelief, my traitorous voice comes out high and embarrassingly raspy. Clearing my throat, I dart a glance over at her. "I . . . really?"

Katniss fiddles with the edge of the quilt, face flushing darker. "For fighting it, not letting him win. For finding a way back to yourself." She hesitates, index finger tracing and retracing the outline of a small green triangle on the quilt’s border. "You're so brave, Peeta."

I blink as a wonderful tingling sensation fills my chest, the words swimming around my insides like the first mouthful of warm soup on a cold fall day. _Weak. Stupid. Soft_.

_Strong. Brave._

Katniss fidgets in place when I still don't answer, and I lick my lips, gaze not for the first time in the past two days dipping to her mouth. But before I can make up my mind to do anything or not, she tucks her hair behind one ear and gestures towards the bathroom.

"You can use my shower, if you want.”

Neck growing a little warm, I reach down to grab my prosthesis. "I need to go home and get clean clothes."

She nods and pretends to examine her fingernails while I climb out of bed and get dressed, clearly worried she’ll get an eyeful of more than just me in my underwear. I laugh softly, earning another scowl.

"What?"

"Nothing." Hiding a smile, I tug a lock of her hair. "I'll be back in a bit."

I shut her front door carefully and practically hop down the steps to her porch, taking in the brilliant sunrise streaking the morning sky with fingers of pink and orange. I'm almost home when I catch sight of another house across the green and the smallest seed of guilt forms, niggling no matter how hard I try to push it from my mind.

I find Haymitch passed out on his couch and snoring loudly, a half-empty liquor bottle slack in his hand. Picking up the dirty plates from the last time I brought food over, I carry them to the sink and get a few slices of bread warming in a pan in the oven, making enough noise that he stirs just as I finish the dishes and start smearing toast with butter and marmalade.

"That you, boy?" he grumbles, never much company in the mornings.

"It's me."

Putting the butter and orange preserves back in his icebox, I wipe my hands and pour hot water into the teakettle.

"How's your head?" Haymitch sits up and smooths his clothes, for what little good it does after sleeping and vomiting in them for three days in a row.

"It's been worse." Carrying the tray into the other room, I set it on the table in front of him. "Probably better than yours."

He snorts and leans over to select a slice of toast. "Fair enough."

We sit there in silence, Haymitch chewing, me trying to look on without getting caught. He hates anything that smells like nagging, but it's hard not to worry if he doesn't get at least one or two meals a day with something to them other than white liquor.

But this time, when he gets down to the bottom of the plate, and the silence in the room starts to feel weighted, I blow out a breath.

"I'm sorry." Swirling my tea, I inhale the warm, soothing scent of peppermint. "For yelling at you. For the things I said."

Haymitch grunts and takes a sip from his cup. "I probably deserved it."

I don't answer.

He finishes his toast and pushes the plate aside. "I ever tell you about my father?" When I frown, he makes a face. "Smart as hell. Could read something one time and recite it back to you days later without a mistake. Too smart to be sent down into the mines his whole life and had a real chip on his shoulder because of it. Developed a mean streak a mile wide. Used to come after me and my brother, beat the shit out of us over nothing to toughen us up." He wipes his mouth. "But I guess you know how that goes, huh?"

Swallowing, I nod. Haymitch drains the rest of his tea and sets the mug aside.

"The one useful thing he ever taught me was to fend for myself." Letting out a hollow laugh, he locates the bottle beside him on the couch and uncorks it. "I one time asked him for a penny to buy a sack of roasted walnuts at the Harvest Festival. He told me to figure out how to get the coin myself or go without. That his job was to give me only what I needed. Nothing more.”

I watch him take a long drink. “What happened to him?”

Haymitch doesn’t meet my eye. “Mouthed off to some Peacekeepers. Wasn’t the first time. They shot him on the spot.”

I stare at him. "Haymitch--"

"That girl loves you," he interrupts quietly. "Don't fuck things up with her."

The breath stills in my throat. "You . . . are you . . . how do you know?"

He snorts again. "Trust me. I _know._ " Giving me a long look, he digs into his coat pocket and pulls out a handkerchief. "While I have you here, remember this little souvenir?"

I unfold it slowly to allow the memory a chance to return, frowning at first at the unfamiliar and rather unremarkable square of cotton until I realize it had something else tucked inside. Something hard and dark, but not particularly heavy. I suck in a breath.

"Is this--?"

"One and the same. Unless Sweetheart happened to be carrying some random pearl in her pocket the day you two were brought in to the hospital. But somehow, that doesn't really sound like her, does it?"

I open my mouth to answer, but no sound comes out. The pearl feels warm in my hand, smaller than I remember, the deep pewter gray flashing dark and lustrous as Katniss' eyes.

"Why do you have it?"

Haymitch slumps back on the sofa. "Got it from one of the doctors in the burn unit. Slipped my mind until the other day." He waits until I look up. "You gave it to her the first time around. Seems like you should be the one to do it again when the time is right."

I nod, carefully folding the handkerchief back around the pearl. "Thank you." Gesturing to his tray, I raise an eyebrow. "Are you finished with this?"

He smirks at me. "Why, was I supposed to eat the plate, too?"

Making a face, I carry the dishes into the kitchen. "I'd stay longer, but Katniss is expecting me back. Do you want to come over for dinner tonight?"

"We'll see. I'll take a plate, either way, if it's not too much trouble."

"I'll come check on you around five," I promise, setting the last dish in his drainer and starting for the door.

"Boy?"

I turn. Haymitch grips the bottle.

"Next time you talk to that head doctor of yours,” he blinks, something unnamable passing across his features, “tell him I said I'll do it. That thing he asked--the last day in the Capitol."

Frowning, I wait a beat. Two. But he doesn’t elaborate. "I don't under--"

"He’ll know what I mean," Haymitch interrupts quietly, and then clears his throat. "We okay?"

I stare back at him, understanding probably just as well as he did that we hadn't _really_ been okay for a long time, that we wouldn't get there over the course of one morning. That just like with me and Katniss, it was going to take more ugly, painful conversations than either of us wanted to have. And that he wouldn't have asked if he didn't care.

And so I nod.

"Yeah. We're okay. I'll see you at five."

And a little while later, after I've showered and changed, after coming up the steps and overhearing Sae teasing Katniss about where I’ve run off to while they finished up breakfast, the former clearly not one bit fooled by my trips home, after Sae leans over to help her granddaughter cut a hot griddle cake into pieces and Katniss sneaks a prowling Buttercup the longest strip of bacon, stealing a smile at me with a faint flush in her cheeks that’s been missing for so long, I quietly reach under the table to hold her hand.

 

* * *

 

_Emmett, Violet, Ash, Rosemary._

"They need you back downstairs."

I frown at the nurse, one I don’t recognize, but slow to a stop on the stationary bicycle. "Now?"

"Now."

She goes to the desk to sign me out while I towel off. The usual pair of orderlies are waiting out in the hall, and we head for the elevators in silence.

"What’s going on?" I ask once we round the corner, quickly growing agitated when she refuses to say. "Can you at least tell me where we're going?"

She punches the button for the psych floor and ignores me, but out of the corner of my eye, I see one of the Avoxes turn fractionally to the other as if in question, recognize the signs formed swiftly in answer as those Decima had shown me. _Sun_. And _teacher_.

Stomach jumping, I step onto the elevator. Dr. Aurelius had come to check on me the following day as promised, but could give me no new information on Katniss, only that he was concerned to hear I'd spent the entire night pacing my room. Which meant that _this_ conversation wasn't likely to go much better.

My palms have grown clammy by the time we approach his door and I fold my arms, conscious it's the first time I've been back to his office since the day everything went so wrong. The door opens. I keep the hand with Katniss’ scar tucked into my armpit so he can't see what it looks like, but he simply thanks the nurse, asks the orderlies to wait, and steps aside so I can enter.

It's not until the door closes and I glance up warily at him that I realize we're not the only ones in the room.

"Haymitch," I whisper, the air choking off in my throat. "Is Katniss . . . is she--?"

It's Dr. Aurelius who answers.

"Katniss is fine, Peeta. The trial is over," he says calmly. "Please come sit down and I'll tell you the rest."

He gestures over by the window where we used to have our sessions, and we take our usual chairs, Haymitch situating himself somewhat uncomfortably on the couch across from us. Dr. Aurelius clears his throat.

"Katniss has been cleared of the charges against her, conditionally."

I frown. "Which means?"

"That she's being released and will be returned home to District Twelve," he explains slowly, and part of me wants to scream at him to hurry the fuck up and talk faster even though I can barely process what he's saying. "But there are conditions to her release that must be met."

Frustrated, I exhale and scrub both hands through my hair. "Would you just tell me what fucking--"

"She must leave the Capitol within the next ten hours and is to be allowed no outside contact with anyone other than medical personnel until that time. She will--"

"Wait . . . what? _No_." Whirling in alarm from him to Haymitch, I get to my feet when neither of them react. "No _fucking_ way am I going to sit here and--"

"Peeta," Dr. Aurelius warns, but it's Haymitch's voice that stops me.

"Sit down, boy." He shakes his head as if he's about had it with both of us. " _This_ is the deal. There's no changing it. Not with how pissed some of Coin's people are that Sweetheart's getting off with a slap on the wrist as it is."

"What are the rest of the conditions?" I demand.

"Katniss will be confined to District Twelve until further notice." Dr. Aurelius meets my eyes. "And required to continue with psychiatric treatment by phone."

"With you?"

"Yes."

I stare back at him. "So why aren't you there with her now?"

"Decima and Hadriana are helping her get ready. Given the current state of things, we thought it best if she left the Capitol as soon as possible."

He turns to Haymitch as if offering him the chance to say something, but the latter declines to elaborate. Brow furrowing, I glance between them. And after only a few seconds, it hits me.

"You're going with her. Back to Twelve."

I don't look at Haymitch as I say it.

"It's part of the deal.” After a moment, he shrugs. "Seems they want someone around who can keep an eye on her, make sure their conditions are met, and whatnot."

I scoff. "And they chose _you_?"

Dr. Aurelius clears his throat. "I'm going to step outside and make some calls."

The door shuts. I keep my gaze affixed to the low table between us, bare but for the small white teapot and empty cups.

"I have to see her, Haymitch," I say in a low voice. "You don't understand what it's doing to me. I haven't slept in two nights, I've been so worried. _Please_ let me see her. Talk to her. Just for a moment. So I can see for myself that she's all right."

He levels me with a look. "You'd really put the girl in danger over it?"

And with those words, any argument I might have made dies in my throat. A beat passes and Haymitch nods towards the door in the direction Dr. Aurelius had gone.

"Have to hand it to him. Comes across like a real prick when he wants to, but there's no way Sweetheart's case would've gone the way it did without him."

"So he testified?" I pick at the back of my hand.

"For three days straight. On both of you, really, the trauma you were put through in the Games, then the shock of the Quell when the girl was supposedly newly pregnant, being separated from you during the war, her losing the _'baby'_ and then her sister getting killed." Haymitch makes a face. "What was even more impressive was how convincing he made the whole thing sound, considering Sweetheart never uttered a word to him at all during their sessions."

"Not once?" I frown at the image that suddenly forms.

"You're surprised?" he counters. "Seems like she hasn’t said ten words to anyone since what happened to her sister. She's bad off, boy."

I stare at the teacups again, knowing that our time must almost be up, _knowing_ what I had to ask, the thing he would do for her and no one else. Certainly not me. But she was special to him and always had been.

"You'll take care of her?" I wait until he meets my gaze from across the table. "Check on her every day?"

He bristles at my tone, and I slam a fist down onto Dr. Aurelius' table, making the delicate china cups rattle in their unblemished saucers.

 _"Promise me,"_ I demand coldly, not caring who they sent running in, what they tied me down with, or even if they sedated me for the rest of the fucking _week_. "Promise me y--"

"All right, boy," he interrupts. "You have my word. I’ll make sure she’s all right."

I don’t respond, still eyeing him distrustfully.

"They're expecting me back." He runs a hand over his face. "Guess this is goodbye for now."

I all but sneer the words. "Guess so."

Haymitch shakes his head, a tense moment passing between us in silence. And then he stands, moving around the table and heading for the door.

"Take care of yourself, Peeta."

A strange feeling begins to form as I watch him go. At first, I think it’s the sight of him walking out on me, again. Or the seemingly benign request to take care of myself, when caring for me is pretty much the last consideration that’s ever crossed his mind. But in the end, I’m almost certain what causes my gut to twist is far simpler than that, the act of calling me by name something he'd done so few times since the day my slip was pulled from the reaping ball, I could count them on one hand.

"Wait," I blurt, when he's almost to the door.

Haymitch looks at me expectantly.

I take a breath, hands starting to shake. "Will . . . will you tell Katniss something for me?" I ask in a small voice, knowing I sound weak, defeated, pathetic. "Let her know that I tried to see her before she left?"

He stares at me, expression unreadable, not moving for so long I’m just about to ask if he’s all right when he turns and opens the door.

"You know where we'll be. Come home and tell her yourself."

"Haymitch," I sputter in disbelief. _"Haymitch."_ I lurch to my feet, stumbling after him, but my prosthetic catches on the table leg. "Shit." Barely righting myself, I limp the rest of the way to the door. “Haymitch, what the _fuck?"_

"See you around, boy."

 _"Haymitch,"_ I bellow, making it three steps out into the hall before I'm forced back into Dr. Aurelius' office by the two orderlies who'd escorted me down from physical therapy.

I stop fighting when they drag me over to a chair, this time the one by Dr. Aurelius' desk, suddenly sick with the knowledge that within a matter of hours, Katniss would be gone. Eyes prickling, I run a finger over the scar from her teeth and try not to cry.

The door opens. I don't look up, but I know who it is when without a word, the burly Avox to my right moves out of my line of vision and follows the other one out the door. Dr. Aurelius takes a seat across from me.

"How are you feeling?"

I entertain myself by following the pattern of swirls on the edge of his desk. "If I tell you I feel like shit, are you going to have them come back in here so you can sedate me?"

It comes out flat, dull. I can't even bring myself to tell him to go fuck himself.

His voice is quiet, calm. “Would it help to try a list?”

I don’t bother responding, the snarled mass of wounded feelings too badly knotted to know where to start. Fury. That Haymitch would refuse me such a small, _simple_ thing. Hurt. Shame. That I couldn't be unequivocally happy for Katniss, leaving this place what would undoubtedly be better for her. Envy. That they were both going back to Twelve. Without me.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say instead.

Dr. Aurelius studies my face. "Would you rather talk about what happened last week?"

When I don't answer except to shrug, he continues.

"Sedation is used on this floor only as a last resort, and only after other interventions have failed. We go to great lengths to ensure it isn't implemented thoughtlessly, or administered in situations where another technique might have proven equally effective." Dr. Aurelius pauses to remove a thick dough-colored file from his cabinet and places it between us on the desk. "Each time sedation or restraints are used, all staff involved are required to file separate reports, which are reviewed by a third party to determine how the situation escalated to that point. It's not something anyone here takes lightly."

I pick at a thread on my pants, a sentence turning over and over in my head, the one some part of me had wanted to scream at him since the last time we'd tried to talk about this.

"It was your fault I was mad in the first place," I say quietly. "You lied to me about Katniss."

"I made the decision that you weren't yet stable enough to be told the full truth. And I did so in the hopes that not having the distraction of worrying hanging over you would mean a quicker recovery."

Fidgeting, I pick at the hem of my hospital-issue shirt. "Do you think I'll ever be able to go home?"

The question sounds pathetic, so much so that I immediately cringe, cheeks heating. But his reply comes quickly, laced with a surety that makes it impossible to doubt as the truth.

"Yes."

I chew on my lip, still reluctant to look at him. "When?"

Dr. Aurelius studies me. "When you're stable enough that you don't present a threat to yourself or anyone else. When you've successfully learned to deal with the hijacking episodes and have a practiced method for managing them much like one would for any other chronic condition, like a seizure disorder. And when you and the doctor working with you both feel you've made sufficient progress addressing the topics I outlined before that you can be treated in an outpatient setting."

"That . . . doesn't sound like something that's going to happen anytime soon." The knot in my stomach grows tighter and my gaze flicks to the chairs where we used to have our sessions.

"Probably a few months is a realistic timeline," he says gently, and then tilts his head. "Peeta, if you're frustrated with me and need to vent, you are more than welcome to do so by yelling, crying, telling me to go fuck myself . . . and I know Dr. Lucius would say the same thing," he waits, but I can't meet his eyes, "but what happened that day was different. Do you understand how?"

I nod, neck growing warm.

"Can you tell me?"

Rubbing Katniss’ scar again, I blow out a breath. "I threw a pan. And a chair."

"Yes," he says quietly. "And I won't risk my staff getting injured. Or you. Much as I never want to sedate any patient, if that patient is exhibiting violent or aggressive behavior, and is unable to calm down when asked, sometimes we're left with no other alternative."

I poke at the trim on the edge of his desk, trying to figure out if there's a way around asking the next question.

"Do I have to keep seeing Dr. Lucius?"

He raises an eyebrow. "If I recall correctly, that was a change _you_ requested be implemented."

I huff out another breath, because of course he isn’t going to make this easy. "Well, can I . . . un-request it?" When he doesn't immediately answer, I stare out his window and follow it with a quiet, "Please?"

Dr. Aurelius nods.

"I'll let him know." He waits a few seconds. "How are you really feeling?"

I shrug. It's not the first time he's asked and usually that means I'm not going to get away with dodging the question forever.

"I haven't slept in two days." I trace the scar lightly, wondering what she was thinking of right now. "I’m worried about Katniss. Pissed at Haymitch. And kind of wishing I was going home, too."

He tilts his head, catching the change in my voice. "Tell me about the last one."

And in the instant my eyes close, I can almost feel the forgotten tickle of fingers brushing the hair back from my forehead. "It's . . . more that I wish I was ready. I wouldn't want to go back now if it meant I might hurt her."

"No," he agrees. "It's imperative we make sure you're really ready this time." He stands and comes around the desk. "I have some things to see to, and I believe you need to finish your hour in physical therapy upstairs."

I follow him out into the hall, stuffing my hands in my pockets. We walk in silence until we're almost to the nurse's station, where I suck in a breath.

"I'm sorry," I mumble quietly. "For what happened last week."

Dr. Aurelius squeezes my shoulder. "I want you to try to get some rest this afternoon, if you can. I'll come check on you before I leave this evening."

I nod, watching him go.

It's many months later, long after I've returned home to Twelve, inhaled the familiar morning breeze that still smells like pine needles, coal dust and the dewy promise of spring, seen Katniss with my own two eyes and screamed at Haymitch for allowing her to deteriorate into such deplorable condition, that I finally see the news reports from the days following the trial, hear the comments Dr. Aurelius made about District Twelve.

And laugh so loudly Buttercup gives me a strange look from where he sits curled up on the hassock. But it doesn't matter. Because I know the truth, understand that in the same way he wouldn’t abandon me for the sake of Katniss, he could never have left the rest of his patients either. The broken men and women from the group that day. The Avoxes still suffering down in the tunnels. Because by then, I’ve finally come to understand that small part of Dr. Aurelius. That it wasn’t just that he’d made his home there, in the Capitol, much like Katniss, Haymitch and I would always belong to Twelve, rather, that while most of Panem had fought the war out of a desire to bring down the Capitol, destroying the system that had oppressed us for seventy-five years, he was of a rare sort, the few who only ever looked at a thing, and thought of how it might be rebuilt.

 

* * *

 

_Alder, Lila, Jonas, Daisy._

I gradually gain awareness of the soft click and whirl of machines at my bedside. Of the sharp, pungent scent of burn medicine. Of pain, lancing across my body with the impossible strength and speed of a lightning storm, slowly ebbing as something cool trickles into my arm.

 _Katniss_.

In the world I now inhabit, she is a ghost who never wants to be found. A shadow, impossible to touch, much less hold in my hands. Hurrying ahead of me in the crowd. Rushing towards the row of barricades. Trapped when the bombs go off.

"Katniss," I rasp, eyelids cracking to reveal a dark, unfamiliar room. I'm in a bed, wrapped in gauze and connected to more tubes and monitors than I would have thought possible. Tilting my head to one side proves to be a mistake, and I cough as soon as I try to swallow, mouth and throat miserably dry.

"Peeta, just lie still for a moment.”

The stranger’s accent is clearly Capitol. She moves into my field of vision, spiraling purple designs tattooed along the upper curve of her cheekbones.

“Can I get you an ice cube?"

I shrink away, scooting towards the far edge of the bed. She frowns.

"Lie still. You’re going to dislodge your catheter."

Panicked to discover my muscles so weak I can barely move them, I grope clumsily for the tubing in my arm, but she's far quicker. The knockout dose drops me into the pillows like a sack of flour, the gentle purr of the machines fading away as my vision once again grows dark.

* * *

_Lars, Jessa, Aspen._

The next time, I'm better prepared, but so are they.

He's waiting in a chair at the far end of the room, a thin, rather plain looking man with a dark beard and glasses wearing a white doctor's coat and holding one of the clipboards they seemed to love in fucking Thirteen, which makes me instantly dislike him.

I'm tied to the bedrails by wrist restraints, too woozy from whatever they gave me to put up much of a fight, my prosthesis notably absent. Half the tubes have been removed, along with some of the gauze. The new skin left exposed in its place is shockingly bright against the white sheets, the angry pink of a fresh slap. The man clears his throat.

"Peeta, you're in the Capitol. In the hospital," he says slowly, his accent making the word come out like _hossspital_. "My name is--"

"I don't care what your fucking name is," I rasp, voice scratchy from disuse, and then promptly begin another coughing fit.

“Would you like an ice cube, for your throat?” He gestures to the tray by my bed. “The nurse left some earlier.”

I just glare, struggling to stop choking so I can form a single word, the only thought right now that matters. _"Katniss?"_

"Is recovering," he informs me calmly. "Can you tell me the last thing you remember?"

"Where is she?" I counter.

"With her mother. She was released a week and a half ago." He crosses one leg over the other. "What do you remember?"

I gesture to the restraints. "Take these off first."

Our eyes meet. It’s a test and he seems to know it.

"I'll take them off once you've demonstrated you can remain calm."

Despising him even more, I spend the next minute trying to glare a hole in the pristine white wall farthest from where he's sitting before eventually giving in.

"I was following Katniss into the City Circle. There was a hovercraft. Bombs. She ran towards a line of barricades. And I went after her."

"Yes," he confirms quietly. "All of that is correct, as far as we can piece together from eyewitness accounts. There was a second round of bombs. You and Katniss were both badly burned." He waits a beat. "Katniss' sister Primrose did not survive."

The words register, but I have trouble comprehending them. Prim, who flitted through my memories of Twelve like sunlight sparkling on fresh snow. Hugging a goat. Searching for an ugly cat. Hopeful. Innocent. Whose voice was one of the rare ones that held neither reservation nor hostility on the occasions she visited me in Thirteen. Gone.

"I want to see Katniss."

Rising, the doctor approaches my bed. "We can talk about that after we've had a chance to run some tests. Right now I'm most concerned with making sure you--"

"Stay the fuck away from me.”

"You had asked me to remove the restraints." He stops, raising an eyebrow and holding out both hands so I can see there’s nothing in them. "Is that still something you'd like me to do?"

I squirm, but reluctantly nod.

He makes his way forward like I’m some sort of feral animal and cautiously releases the strap on the closest cuff. "Please be careful not to pull out your IV."

I glower at him. He returns to his chair while I get the restraints off and greedily dig a handful of ice chips from the plastic container on the tray by my bed. Studying him warily as I suck moisture into my parched throat, I gesture to my missing leg.

"Whuh muh pruffeish?" I mumble through a mouthful of ice.

“The circuitry was damaged by the heat of the explosion. They're working to make repairs that will suffice in the short term, but you'll need to be fitted for a new one before leaving the Capitol."

I absorb the answer but don’t respond, too busy crunching ice and examining the state of what exposed skin I can find. Sections of it appear melted, like waxy sheets of cheese after they've been layered onto bread and put into the oven to warm. Other parts just seem irritated, red and inflamed as if I’ve spent too long out in the sun. A few spots, mostly on my chest and stomach, look mostly unscathed.

"Peeta?"

I frown.

The doctor watches me carefully. "I was saying that it's been nearly a month since the bombs went off. You were put into a coma to give your burns a chance to heal."

Nodding, I try to think of how to ask the next question, having no way to know if he was a diehard Capital loyalist or had secretly been part of the rebellion. The ice solves most of the issue for me. "Wahr?"

His face gives away nothing. "Is over. Alma Coin has been sworn in as president. I believe you know her from Thirteen?" Returning to the chair when I nod, he picks up the clipboard. "I'm going to let your nurse know you're awake. Do you need anything else before I go?"

We stare at each other. And finally, I swallow a mouthful of freezing slush and ask it, tongue numb, but throat mercifully quieting.

"Whehre ish Kahtnish?"

His eyes don’t leave mine, and I see the deception in them even before the word forms, anger rising as it sets in through the haze of medication that he was never planning on telling me at all.

“Recovering.” He doesn't blink, even when I glare, glacially calm. "I'll see you tomorrow, Peeta."

I want to throw something at him, but all I have is the ice cup and I doubt they’ll refill it if I do.

Haymitch doesn’t show up until the end of the week, after I’ve been transferred upstairs. Delly, I later find out, has problems of her own back in Thirteen. Johanna trusts very few people, and the few she likes even less than Capitolites are head doctors. Annie grieves alone in Four.

Katniss, I don’t see again until just before Snow’s execution. Quiet and oddly detached as she passes a single white rose to President Coin. Something in her expression etched with the same fierce determination as the day she stepped onto the stage in Prim’s place at the reaping. Her eyes find mine across a crowded table and I’m forced to look away, because even in this state, wings crushed, song subdued, she is radiant as the most brilliant sunrise after endless weeks of rain. And I fail to understand until moments later, when her arrow lands true and I watch her slowly lower her bow amidst a sea of chaos, a final act of sisterly devotion complete, ready to die.

In the coming months, I forget much of what happens those first weeks. Questions, pleas, and curses shouted at every person who comes into contact with me, I proceed to destroy the contents of my room twice in the first five days alone, incensed they won’t tell me where she is. Endless rounds of medication blur together, and it isn’t long before I’m overwhelmed by their regimen of bandages, salves, treatments, and tests. Years later when scheduling one of my checkups, Hadriana remarks that I’d better be bringing extra muffins now that I know what they have to put up with. I laugh and promise to do my best. And although over the years, I eventually come to think of her and Decima fondly, I don’t really recall whether they were the ones to talk me down while I was restrained and in hysterics immediately after the execution or helped changed my bandages when it seemed I would never stop ripping my skin to shreds.

But I never forget this is the first time I meet Dr. Aurelius.

 

* * *

 

_Constance, Basil, Ivy, Linden._

"Lunch should be ready in ten minutes."

"'Kay," I answer absently, switching pencils.

From over by the stove, Katniss snorts, and I finally lift my head. After breakfast she’d showered and put on a soft, buttery yellow blouse and comfortable pants that cinched in snugly at her waist.

Giving her a sheepish look, I drop the pencil and rub my face. "Sorry, I'm still kind of out of it. Do you need me to--"

"It's almost done." She comes over to the table and pours a little more hot water into my tea. "You can slice the bread when we're ready to eat."

I nod and dip the tea bag into the cup, inhaling the fragrant scent of peppermint curling off the surface of the water. After breakfast, I'd gone home to bake for a while and was in the middle of working out a half-forgotten recipe for gingerbread cookies when she called, whose turn it was to come over where and do what quickly paling in importance the moment she offered to make soup.

"Can I see?"

The response dies in my throat as her fingers curl into my hair, stroking gently at the nape of my neck. Closing my eyes, I squirm in the chair, pretty sure I was going to start rubbing up against her side like Buttercup if she kept it up much longer.

"Yeah, sure." I clear my throat. Angling the page towards her, I steal a glance up at her face as she slides into the seat next to me.

Katniss studies the sketch, brow slowly furrowing.

"Is this Bannock?" she asks at last.

Nodding, I take a sip of tea. And after another minute silently ticks by, I rub my thumb along the edge of my cup, voicing the answer to her unspoken question.

"I went downstairs one night after I thought everyone else was asleep to sneak some extra parchment off the roll under the counter." Pausing, I flex my fingers nervously around the warm ceramic. "I'd run out of leftover scraps to draw on and when I asked my mother about it, she said we couldn't afford to waste coins on something frivolous."

Katniss doesn't say anything, and after a few seconds, I start to fidget, wishing for once I knew what she was _really_ thinking. Whether she would sympathize with me for taking a few inches of the plain, cheap paper we used in the ovens, or my mother, who left all of us constantly on edge and saw her efforts to assert control as necessary for survival, counting every cookie sold and scrap of flour sacking that could be reused, hoarding every coin and ounce of fat until some days I could barely breathe for it.

"Anyway," I say after a moment. "When I was halfway down the stairs, I heard them talking . . . well, _arguing_ really."

"Your father and Bannock," Katniss interjects, still frowning.

I swirl my tea. "It was maybe a week before he and Tarra got married. I knew I should have turned around, gone back upstairs, but it was almost surreal hearing the two of them actually fighting. Bannock had always been just like Dad, would stand there silently, never uttering a word, while she screamed at him."

Katniss waits for me to go on, something in the way she doesn't press for more information hinting she knows somehow, that something terrible is coming.

"Bannock sounded like he’d been crying. And I heard him tell Dad that he couldn't go through with it." I study the pattern on my cup. "That he didn’t love her, not like that.”

“The marriage was arranged?” Katniss questions, and I grunt.

“Pretty much. If they got married, he’d move out and start working for the grocer, eventually inherit the business. Then the bakery would have gone to Rye and I could help out until they figured out what to do with me.”

She’s silent, clearly not missing the wry note in my voice.

“Dad started to tell him maybe they would learn to love each other with time, and that’s when Bannock broke down, said he wasn't sure he liked girls at all."

When I look up, Katniss is staring out the window, not unlike the way she used to all those years ago in school, expression unreadable.

"Say something," I mumble.

She chews her lip, poking at the edge of my sketchbook. "Did you know?"

Rotating the sketch towards me, I take in the lines in both their faces. "I think maybe part of me did, or suspected. Wasn’t exactly something I could just ask, you know?"

I'm draining the rest of my tea when she speaks up, asking the question I'd been dreading.

"What happened?"

And as I grip the cup, it's impossible not to think of how easy it would be to lie, everyone who knew the truth forever silenced by several yards of ash and dirt in the Meadow. But as two answers dance on the tip of my tongue, something Dr. Aurelius said to me the night before comes drifting back. That only through the act of trusting, of sharing truth with others, did we allow them to truly love us. That it was essential those we were closest to be allowed to care for our hurts. Nurture us. Make us whole. That if we made a habit of locking things away inside, we would never feel accepted as we really were.

Clearing my throat, I tap my thumb nervously on the table. "Dad told him it was something he just had to do, that he would forget about the other feelings with time. Bannock stared at him. And after a few seconds, stormed out of the bakery. Dad stood there like he didn't know what to do with himself, and then started prep work for the next morning even though he didn’t have to be up for hours. I snuck back upstairs. And the next day . . ."

Her fingers brush mine, and I turn my hand over, letting them intertwine.

"Bannock had returned. Father pretended nothing had happened. A week later, we all went to their wedding. And two weeks after that, you and I were reaped." Nervous that she’s so quiet, I toy with her fingers. "And I never said anything.”

And as silence fills the room, I can’t avoid the guilt that swells in its wake. The regret. That I’d wanted to tell him I'd overheard. That I knew. That it didn’t matter to me, not really. That it was wrong what Dad had done.

“I didn't know how to bring it up,” I admit. “Bannock and I were never close. A few months after we got back from the Games, I told Rye, but he said to just leave it alone."

Katniss frowns like she's about to say something, but stops when a pot lid clatters on the stove. Shaking her head, she quickly slides from her chair. "Sorry."

I follow her into the kitchen and pull a knife from the drawer to slice the bread. She dishes creamy potato soup into two bowls and sprinkles it with goat cheese and a garnish of dried herbs.

"Smells good," I say quietly.

She gives me the barest of smiles, rolling her eyes as if to deflect the compliment. Mimicking her, I wait until she snorts, then bump her hip and pick up both bowls.

We tuck into our lunch. For as little as Katniss is, she's always had an appetite like a wolf, and she nearly beats me to a second bowl.

"I always saw him differently." She says it quietly, tearing off a small piece of bread to mop up the soup from around the edge of her bowl. “You know, your dad.”

I nod, appetite suddenly waning. Katniss notices that I’m not eating, her brow starting to furrow. I shrug, fiddling with my spoon.

“Some days I miss them so badly. And then others . . . I’m so angry at them, I want to punch a hole through the wall.”

When I look up, she’s pushing her napkin from side to side, and it’s obvious from the way she’s chewing her lip that she has no idea what to say. As if anything existed she _could_ say that would make it okay. I take a breath.

"He used to make us soup.” Her eyes flit to mine. I draw my spoon around the bowl, remembering. "Made the staleness of the bread harder to taste. It’s one of the reasons I like it so much when you make it."

“Peeta.”

She says my name softly, the syllables etched with something far too close to pity. I take a breath.

"There are things about him, about _all_ of them, that shouldn’t go in the book. It would just feel . . . wrong.” Pulling at a thread on the edge of my napkin, I shrug. "But I needed someone to know the truth."

Katniss stares at me with an expression I can’t decipher, cheeks pinking just slightly when she finally goes back to stirring her spoon around her bowl.

We finish lunch in silence. And after, when the leftovers have been put away, when I’ve filled a basin with hot, soapy water and started on the dishes, she appears by my side with a clean dishtowel draped over one shoulder and a smile quirking at her lips.

I let out a bark of laughter. "Don't even _think_ about it."

Narrowing my eyes as I pass her the first bowl to dry, I watch her bite her bottom lip.

"I don't know what you're--"

"You're a terrible liar, and we both know it," I inform her dryly, ducking out of the way when she splashes me with soapy water from the sink. "And now you're just making a mess."

A giggle escapes as she holds her hands up in a gesture of surrender. I go back to scrubbing the pot, unable to stop a smile from forming at seeing her so happy. So _alive_.

Katniss picks up the towel, humming to herself while she dries. I turn on the spigot to give the pot another rinse, by now no longer surprised when something soft swats me on the butt.

"Stop," I tell her in sing-song, barely having time to issue the warning before she bats the dishtowel at me again. This time I roll my eyes and grab the other end, tugging her closer when she refuses to let go. She lets out a little squeak when she lands against my chest, cheeks darkening.

"Let go," I order, the words coming out huskier than intended, and her gaze dips briefly to my mouth.

" _You_ let go." She bites her lip again, clearly daring me to do something about it. "I'm still drying."

"I'll tickle you," I threaten in a whisper, fighting not to smile when her cheek twitches. "Last chance."

“I’ll tickle _you_ ,” she counters, eyes glittering dangerously. “Truce?”

I scoff, wondering how long this would last for, but release my end of the towel. Katniss steps away from me and goes back to drying, a smirk hovering at her lips. Finished rinsing the pot, I set it on her side of the sink and reach across her to put the sprayer back in the holder. She lets out a squeal when the water hits her and grabs for the sprayer.

“Ugh, sorry. It was an accident--"

Letting out a loud guffaw, she pulls the sprayer towards her and squeezes it, but I quickly shut the water off before my pants can get too soaked. Katniss narrows her eyes.

“I get one shot. It’s only fair.”

“First off, it really _was_ an accident,” I reiterate, unable to keep from smiling when she scowls. “And second,” I gesture to my pants, “you clearly got me worse than I got you.”

She mutters something under her breath, but I can tell from the way she’s having to bite her lip that she’s not really angry. Grinning, I lean back against the edge of the sink and grab an extra towel to help her finish drying. We work in silence, and when she stretches on her toes to put a bowl in the cabinet, my eyes can’t help but be drawn to areas of her blouse where the water isn’t yet dry, the material faintly transparent and clinging to her skin.

"So, what did you used to sketch?" She blurts the question a bit too fast and immediately turns her back to me, retreating quickly as a bird worried it’s lighted upon a branch that may not bear its weight. "You know, back then. Before the Games."

I shrug. “Lots of things.”

She's silent for a minute.

“People?”

I raise an eyebrow, wondering where this is going. “Yes.”

She devotes more attention than is really necessary to wiping up the counter. “Did you used to draw me?”

I snort. It’s a stupid question when you consider how many times the old me told her, just in television clips alone, that he’d been in love with her since he was five years old. Surely it wasn’t so hard to figure out _that_ Peeta Mellark had scribbled her likeness on every scrap of paper he could get his hands on. Innocent childish drawings of her standing in the bakery doorway with her father. Of the way her long, dark braid hung down her back in school. Katniss singing in music class. Katniss staring longingly out a window before recess.

And much later, more than a few that were far less pure. Katniss Everdeen perched at the edge of a bed, her modesty protected only by a sheet draped loosely around her hips, the firm, perfect tits I’d tried not to steal a look at every day since the small buds had first appeared the year before pointed proudly at me, tips flushed as I always imagined them through the two tiny peaks they formed in her shirts. Or much later, the one I’d thrown in the fire at least a dozen times before completing, a drawing of Katniss in which she wore not a stitch of clothing, lithe arms stretched lazily above her head as her legs twisted slightly to the side in the same pose as the picture from the magazine clipping Rye had gotten from one of his friends, offering me a peek at her dark thatch of hair and soft pink lips. Surely she had to know the way he’d-- _I’d_ jerked off to them night after night. Worshipped them. Worshipped _her_. When for so long it felt like she didn’t even know I was _alive_.

An answer forms on my tongue, one that’s cold. Sarcastic. Biting. And I’m a breath away from setting it free when I see the way she’s watching me, take in the uncertainty in her eyes. And it’s then that it sinks in she’s not just asking to hear it again, hear that she’s perfect, that she’s adored, that everybody loves her and Peeta Mellark will _always_ top that list. That with everything that’s happened between us, the hijacking, the Capitol, Gale _fucking_ Hawthorne, she’d never really been asking about the _old_ Peeta Mellark at all.

I clear my throat. “Can I show you something?”

She lets me lead her over to the couch, doesn’t say anything when I place the sketchbook Dr. Aurelius gave me all those months ago, the one I still use, on the table in front of her. And I can see the question forming, know that for as obvious as it was to me, for all the hours I'd spent drawing her, longing for her, _obsessing_ over her after we were separated that day in the Capitol, this was something I'd never allowed _her_ to see.

She fidgets when I begin to play with her hair. "You want me to--"

"Go ahead," I say softly. "It's okay."

I'm prepared for the way she stills at the sketch of her with Prim, for the glassiness in her eyes and hitch in her breath as she memorizes her sister’s face one final time, swallows and turns the page. But not for the frown that slowly deepens as she examines the drawing of us together on the train, at the messy jumble of words I'd written and crossed out and filled in dozens of times, trying to get them right.

"What's this?" Katniss leans back against me, and I tuck my head over her shoulder.

"Something I was trying to remember." Her hair smells like apples today, soft and fragrant. "Sometimes it helped to draw it first."

Nodding, she flips through a few more pages, starting to chew her fingernails. I capture her hand to stop her. And then she gets to one of the few sketches I was pretty sure she would've wanted me to hide.

"This is . . . um?" The change in her breathing is obvious, and from how red her cheeks are, I have a feeling she already knows.

"In the tunnels," I say lightly, not having to look at it for long to recall the darkness of her eyes and flush of her lips, this particular memory one I'd spent hours upon hours reliving in what moments of privacy I was able to carve out. Aching for the taste of her mouth and remembered heat of her breath. "When you kissed me."

"Oh." Katniss stares at the image for a few seconds more, then quickly flips the sketchbook closed and hands it back. "Thank you for showing me."

Suppressing a smile, I take it. She starts to rise, but I catch her hand, stretching out on the couch and tugging her towards me. We make space for each other a little awkwardly, Katniss shifting her weight like she’s only just become aware of how close we are before eventually settling into my side. I trail fingers through the singed ends of her hair, waiting for her breathing to even out.

"I still had the pearl you gave me," she whispers it, head pillowed on my chest, "when the hovercraft picked me up in the arena." Her fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt. "Do you remember?"

"Yes," I say hoarsely.

Katniss chews her lip. "I kept it with me. In Thirteen. And later, when we went to the Capitol."

A wave of guilt passes over her face, and as my chest begins to ache, it's all I can do to keep myself from grabbing her hand and dragging her back to my house where I'd tucked the pearl safely in the bottom of one of my drawers. But for all of his screw ups, I couldn't help but think that this time, Haymitch was right. That she deserved to be given the pearl again in a moment that was meaningful, that would serve as a reminder of just how irreplaceable she was to me, and had _always_ been, even on those bad days when it seemed impossible to reach her, not just because I had it again and we'd had a fight.

Katniss nuzzles closer, and I tuck my arm around her, rest my cheek against the top of her head. I wait until her breathing has slowed down to ask it, until all her defenses have fallen away, whispering the question into her hair.

"You still think I'm strong. Brave. Real or not real?"

Katniss Everdeen has never been good with words. Her truth comes in the heat of a kiss on a moonlit beach. In the soft brush of fingers in a tunnel from which there is little hope of escape. In the way she stared into my face at dawn on the morning I finally arrived home. Like I was the sun itself.

And now, I feel her answer in the warmth of her breath at my neck, in the tightening of her arm at my waist, and in the wriggle of toes against my calf a second before the answer comes.

"Real."

 

* * *

 

_Linnie, Storm, Opal, August, Senna._

Dusk is just falling over the Capitol when the knock sounds at my door.

I glance up, then go back to watching evening approach the mountains in the distance without saying anything. Dr. Aurelius comes up to stand beside me at the window, hands clasped behind his back.

"It's quite extraordinary, isn't it? How still the city can appear at certain times of day," he muses. "How peaceful."

I nod, unable to keep from picturing dark, flowing hair strewn across my lap, gray eyes watching me intently as I softly twirl fingers through the length of each strand, wondering at the pleasure of being allowed such an intimacy.

Dr. Aurelius leans against the wall. "My father used to get up early every day to watch the sun rise over those mountains from the window of our apartment before leaving for work. So many years later and I still remember the smell of his favorite coffee. He had a gift for appreciating beauty in the smallest things most would overlook.”

Shifting at the edge of the bed, I allow the words to turn over in my mind, something in his voice stirring the memory of what Decima had told me. "Were you close?"

"Yes." Dr. Aurelius pauses, seeming to debate whether or not to say more. "He died when I was about your age." Waiting a moment, he steps away from the wall. "I thought you would want to know that Haymitch and Katniss arrived safely in Twelve."

Part of me was prepared for this, has been waiting on edge all afternoon, worried something might have happened to them. The other, far more selfish part can’t help the hollowness that forms at the news, sick at the thought she was so far away.

When I look up, Dr. Aurelius is watching me. I make a sound under my breath. "I wish I trusted Haymitch the way _you_ seem to."

He doesn't answer right away.

"From what little I've seen, it's obvious he cares for you both very much. And struggles greatly with how to show it."

I roll my eyes. "He cares about _her_."

Dr. Aurelius smiles patiently at me in a way that suggests he won’t force the topic now, but it will probably come up for discussion at our next session. "Were you able to get any rest this afternoon?"

Shrugging, I rub the edge of the fresh bandage one of the nurses had put on my hand.

"Not really. Felix and I played checkers." I frown up at him. "In the meeting, he said they gave him an injection to make it so he couldn't ever father children. Did they do that to all the Avoxes?"

"Yes." Dr. Aurelius stares out at the fading sky, expression grim. "The serum they used results in complete sterility 95% of the time in males, and 80% of the time in females. We'll know more in the coming years as more of them start to come out of the shadows whether there's any hope what was done to them might be reversible."

I nod, the weight bearing down on my chest that I'd temporarily managed to avoid thinking about growing heavier by the second until every breath hurt like I'd slammed straight into a wall.

"I'm worried about her," I finally whisper. "Worried Haymitch is just going to go back to doing what he always does. That she'll--"

"Before he left, Haymitch gave me the name of a woman from your district, Sae," Dr. Aurelius interrupts gently. "A friend and former neighbor to Katniss. Do you know her?"

"Yes," I whisper, frowning at the vague memory of her from Thirteen and jumble of what existed before. "I think so. Why?"

"She'll be checking in on Katniss daily until I make the determination she can care for herself. Making sure she eats. Giving me weekly reports. Calling immediately if something doesn't seem right." He tilts his head. "I think your protectiveness towards her is a healthy sign."

Shrugging, I trace the outline of her teeth very lightly over the surface of the bandage. "It's what she and I do."

Dr. Aurelius nods thoughtfully.

"I suspect that’s something that has always resonated strongly with you.” He pauses, causing me to look up. “The way she took her sister's place in the Games. And later, that she didn't hesitate to put herself in harm's way for you."

I don't say anything, and he must see the question in my eyes, because he smiles and pushes away from the wall. And it's then that I notice he's brought a voice recorder.

"You'd never been able to expect that someone would stand up for you. Defend you," he continues quietly. "And here was Katniss, stepping forward without a second thought to exchange her life for Prim’s. Unafraid of showing how strongly she was capable of feeling love.” He waits a beat. “I think part of you has craved someone to show you that sort of affection."

Picking up the rice sack, I toss it from hand to hand. Dr. Aurelius sets the voice recorder on the tray by my bed. I make a face.

"I'm not using that. I'll wait until I’m off restrictions and can have my pencils back."

Dr. Aurelius smiles tolerantly. "I didn't expect you would. It has a few recordings saved that I thought you might appreciate."

I frown. "Recordings of what?"

"Home," he answers cryptically, and turns for the door.

Scoffing, I reach for the voice recorder. "You're not worried I'll smash it like the last two?"

The faintest trace of amusement is suppressed so quickly I nearly miss it, disappearing entirely in the time it takes him to swipe his badge.

"Not particularly. I'll see you in the morning, Peeta."

On the voice recorder, I find over an hour of Katniss singing. Ballads. Old Mountain airs. Love songs that send a shiver down to the base of my spine. Some I know. Some I must have once known. And whether familiar or pure and new as the kiss of sunlight on freshly fallen snow, the haunting caress of her voice sears itself as indelibly into my heart as it once did that first day of school.

And for the first time in days, the once-despised voice recorder set to play on a continuous loop while I clutch it protectively against my chest, I finally sleep.

 

* * *

 

_Gar, Cassie, Reed, Agnes._

I wake to the faintest stroke of fingertips, squinting at the familiar tickle of hair being swept away from my eyes. Perched on one arm, Katniss stares down at me, the curves of her face soft in the late afternoon light. I swallow, reaching up to delicately tuck back a loose strand of her hair. She blinks as my fingertip ghosts past the shell of her ear, expression unreadable, but I don’t miss that her breathing grows suddenly shallow.

Our eyes locked, I let my thumb softly trace her cheekbone, fingers barely skimming the outline of her jaw. Her mouth comes open for half a second before she catches her bottom lip in her teeth to pin it in place. I suppress the urge to smile, smoothing my thumb across her cheek a second time as the rise and fall of her shoulders begins to quicken. Conflicting emotions cloud her features, a mixture of confusion, fear, and longing thick in the furrow of her brow, and I sit up slowly in an effort not to startle her, letting the fingers of my other hand thread gently into her hair.

The surprise in her eyes when the pad of my thumb brushes her bottom lip is the reflection of moonlight on snow, the innocence in long, dark lashes batting guilelessly against her cheeks drawing a private smile. Her gaze dips to my mouth. Caught, she looks away almost immediately, and I feel the heat flush her skin under my fingertips, but there’s no mistaking the dilation of her pupils as anything else. Leaning in, I touch my forehead softly to hers.

Neither of us moves. My hands frame her cheeks with infinite tenderness, our noses brushing lightly with each breath, lips hovering so close I can feel the heat of her mouth. The fractional lift of her chin grants the permission I’ve been seeking, and ever so delicately, I close the distance between us, mouth settling softly over hers.

Despite the fact that we’ve gone further before, that much of the first weeks we interacted were spent making out in one fashion or another, this time I’m determined not to rush things. Katniss sighs when I move from gently worrying her upper lip to nibbling at the bottom, mouth soft and receptive, and I take my time kissing every last spot from the tiny dimple that forms when she smirks to the faint freckle just under her nose before pulling back to look into her eyes.

I don’t get far. A small sound forms in the back of her throat, eyes fluttering open long enough only for me to read desire and obvious dismay swirling beneath heavy lids, her chin angling up in search of my mouth. Sighing, I give in.

A dark shudder passes through me the moment our lips touch, delicious and intoxicating, and from the way Katniss’ face trembles in my hands, the way we both immediately press closer to seal the connection, I know she feels it, too. Her head tips to the side as I make a project of leaving lazy kisses first across one lip, then the other, pausing to tenderly nuzzle her nose when she gazes up at me with dark, smoky eyes.

Fingers brush my neck like the tickle of a feather, tentatively caress my cheek. I kiss her more fervently in response. This time when she tips her head, I part my lips just before we make contact, the hand stroking through her hair firming gently until she exhales against my mouth and allows her jaw to slacken. Our tongues meet, touching then retreating, a shy stroke becoming a languid rub, and I groan when she angles further to one side while sliding her grip to my shoulders, eager to fully explore the depths of her mouth.

But it’s then that I notice her fingers quaking, feel the tension that has entered her muscles, start to understand that wonderful as her lips feel under mine, something is still off, that we’re hurtling ahead too quickly. We break for air, and I rest my forehead against hers, gently squeezing hands that are now trembling outright.

"Hey, Kat," I say softly.

"You weren't wrong," she blurts, breathing starting to quicken. "Yesterday, when--”

She falls silent, and I lean up to press a kiss to her brow, lacing her fingers with mine.

"We'll wait."

* * *

_Sage, Lily, Val, Peony, Samuel, June._

That evening, when the fireflies are just starting to come out, Katniss and I go for a long walk, and at the end of it, make a pledge to call Dr. Aurelius together the following morning. We put together a late supper of roast beef sandwiches with cheese and tomatoes, our former mentor grudgingly hanging up the phone and making his way over once I mentioned they were on the rolls he especially liked.

After supper, he beats me soundly at chess, drunkenness be damned, and once again waves off Katniss’ requests to contribute to the memory book, bidding us both good night and staggering off across the lawn towards home.

Later, I stare up at the ceiling while Katniss sleeps sprawled across my chest, stroking fingers lightly through her hair and silently reflecting over a year that had seen so much destroyed, and yet found the two of us lucky enough to be together when all the rubble had been cleared away. When the sun rises the following morning, I squeeze her hand, take one of the hardest breaths I’ve ever had to, and ask if we can start Rye’s page next.

* * *

_Atticus, Iris, Sorrel, Jasmine._

It isn't until some months later that Haymitch finally agrees to help us, a day he and I find a measure of understanding. Because in the moment his eyes cloud and he begins slowly, one by one, to list off twenty-three years of lost tributes, their faces, their families, what their too-short lives had been before their names were plucked from a cruel glass ball, and although we don’t record the horror of their final days, what atrocities he stood witness to at the Capitol’s hands, never once needing to check a book or scrap of paper, I know why I have only ever been _boy_ to him, and Katniss, _girl_. How he could eventually be driven to make the inhuman decision to try to save one of us over the other, because torture strips away the very essence of our humanity.

And on that day, as I see the pain Haymitch Abernathy has struggled against for twenty-five years and still not overcome, I finally find it in my heart to forgive.

I tell him, later when we're alone, that I'm sorry for what I said, that day and on others, the day we argued and I demanded reparation for crimes that were never really his to answer for, to which he once again replies with a guttural laugh made all the more low by white liquor, that he probably deserved it.

To which I can only answer, that none of us did.

 

* * *

 

 Part 3 of 3 . . .

 

Comments are like warm soup with fresh bakery bread, courtesy of Peeta, of course! Would love to hear what you thought :)

 


	8. Clear and Simple

_“I should have never let them separate us.”_

 

* * *

 

_I'll see you at midnight._

In the utter absence of light, the promise tickles like the faintest graze of a fingertip along the bare sole of an arched foot. Ghosts past my ear like the flirtatious stroke of a brush dipped in pale, watery paint. A wisp of fog that evaporates just as I turn my head and reach out to capture it in the dark.

 _Katniss_.

Seconds stretch, panic rising like bile in my throat when she fails to reappear. Lurching forward, I stumble on leaden feet towards the sound of waves crashing into the sand down at the beach, a fleeting memory of fingertips on my cheek the only sign I hadn't imagined it entirely.

"Katniss," I hiss urgently, afraid the others will hear. Will close in around her like a pack of wild dogs thirsty for a kill. That in the end, my desperation to keep her safe would be what wound up drawing them to her.

I'm almost to _something_ , a shadowy form in the distance, when my prosthetic catches on a thick vine, pitching me forward. I land on my hands and knees, only by some miracle missing my knife. Panting for breath, I swivel from side to side in an effort to orient myself, flinching at shadows, stomach leaping into my throat with every leaf that rustles and stick that cracks. But it’s no use, the darkness a suffocating blanket under which only the Gamemakers can see, calling forth evils hidden within the air and the trees and the water as one by one, we all begin to turn on each other.

And just as hope shrivels to a cold, shuddering desperation, silver irises pure as the light of a distant star pierce the inky blackness. Almost sick with relief, I scramble to my feet, finding that even as I do, the light has already begun to drift further into the jungle.

“Katniss, stop,” I plead, tripping over my own feet in my hurry to catch up to her.

_It's okay. We'll just drop the coil and come straight back up._

_"No."_ I'm shouting now, crashing through the dense foliage in an effort to reach her. "Katniss, _wait."_

She leans up on her toes to take my face in her hands, presses a kiss to my lips that's so soft, so achingly tender, it instantly fills me with a far deeper dread than anything we've faced in either arena.

_Don't worry._

The warped notes of the anthem mock me from the Gamemakers’ artificial night sky, sinister and distorted, mockingjays and jabberjays alike cawing its tune in a grotesque call of death as I slash my knife left and right, hacking vines out of the way. And then Katniss' scream fills the night, a sound that slices through my flesh with hooked claws and murderous razor fangs, ripping out my intestines as emotionlessly as I slash at the vines.

 _"No,"_ I howl, surging forward. _“Katniss.”_

Thorns and branches scratch at my cheeks as I flail blindly, desperate to catch up, some part of me understanding this, _this_ was always what she had intended, the truth etched plainly in her eyes as she'd stared at the tiny gray pearl nestled in the belly of her palm. Determined to exchange our places, surely as she had hers and Prim's.

_"Peeta--"_

 

* * *

 

"And in this dream you’re back in the Quarter Quell?"

“I already--” Huffing out a breath, I lower my head. "It's the same one as before. The same one I keep having _every_ night. I--"

"Tell me again," Dr. Aurelius says calmly, ignoring the face I make. "I know it may seem repetitive, but if your subconscious mind is drawing on the same memory over and over again, it's likely something you need to work your way through."

“Like a fucking jabberjay,” I mutter, rubbing my eyes.

“Sorry, I missed that.”

“Nothing.” Swallowing, I run my finger over the edge of the plain cloth-bound journal he had me bring this morning, along with my sketchbook. "I'm back at the lightning tree. Trying to find Katniss."

"Trying to find her, _how_?"

"I'm . . . running towards the beach." Shuddering, I close my eyes. "I can . . . hear her screaming for me. And then--"

Dr. Aurelius raises an eyebrow. "And?"

I stare out at the Capitol, the first week of March having blown in sharp and cold. "And . . . I'm hacking at vines and branches with my knife, trying to clear a path . . . get to her. I have to get to her."

"Is anyone else there?"

I snort. "Does it count when I wake up screaming and scare the shit out of Felix?"

Dr. Aurelius studies me carefully, the question coming softer this time. "In the dream, is there anyone else with you?"

"No," I answer, suddenly uncomfortable. "Why?"

"You never make contact with Katniss?"

“No . . . I” Frustrated, I scrub a hand through my hair. "Haven't you seen the tapes?"

"Of course," he replies calmly. "But dreams don't always or even _usually_ precisely recount actual events. More often they are an emotional representation of what weighs on us in the present day. And often a highly useful one as they tend to bypass mental blocks the conscious mind erects."

I slump back in the chair. He leans down to pour both of us more tea, giving me a moment.

"Why am I doing so much worse all of a sudden?"

Dr. Aurelius glances up. "I'm not sure I'd agree with that assessment. You've been dealt several difficult transitions in the last few weeks, and have handled them admirably."

I resist the urge to roll my eyes, wondering how he'd so quickly forgotten my throwing a pan at his head. Fidgeting, I stare out his window.

"In every dream I'm trying to get back to her, would do _anything_ to reach her." I trace the outline of her scar through the light layer of gauze covering it. "And I can't find her. I'm just not fast enough. Strong enough. She’s just . . . _gone."_

Even as the words leave my mouth, the weight of so many sleepless nights causes pressure to form between my temples. That it wasn't just dreams, but fears that haunted me every minute I was awake. Frustration that I was scribbling out page after page in a journal, sketching my dreams until my hand hurt, even attempting Dr. Alexander's relaxation exercises in an effort to clear my head, all of it to get home to _her_.

Dr. Aurelius tilts his head to one side, pausing in his notes. "Do you remember feeling anything specific just before you wake?"

I take a deep breath. "Fear something’s happened to her." Watching him write, I clear my throat. "There's something I wanted to ask you, something I forgot to ask on Saturday."

He raises an eyebrow, setting his notes aside. "I see. You remember we sat down together and came to a very specific agreement?"

I swallow a halfhearted sip of tea, not particularly enjoying the flavor of whatever Capitol blend he had steeped today. "This isn't really about Katniss. Not exactly."

He levels me with a look.

I squirm and rub my thumb along the rim of the cup. We'd worked out a deal where I was allowed to ask for updates _once_ per week, and only from him. If I so much as _tried_ to get information out of Decima or Hadriana, who'd seen Katniss the day she went home to Twelve, I'd be put on restrictions for two weeks.

"If Katniss or Haymitch called here, would I be allowed to talk to them?" I ask carefully. "I'm just wondering if maybe they've been trying, but--"

"You would be allowed to take their calls," Dr. Aurelius interrupts gently.

Our eyes meet for only a second before I quickly look away, but it's enough to convey everything he won't say aloud. That no one has called. Not Haymitch. Not Katniss. That nothing has changed in Sae's reports from what he told me three days ago.

"I'm worried about her," I finally mumble, setting my cup down and rubbing my face.

Dr. Aurelius nods. "That’s understandable. You care about Katniss very much. That said, it's only been ten days--"

"Eleven," I interrupt.

"--and she's been through multiple traumas in a short time period, just as you have. It's to be expected that she may need time to process everything that's happened to her before true recovery can begin."

Exhaling, I stare at the bandage covering the scar from where she bit me. "Yeah."

Dr. Aurelius clears his throat. "Do you have any journal entries that you'd like to discuss?"

I flip to the right page and hand it over, leaning back in the chair as he adjusts his glasses and begins to read. It's something new we've only been doing for the past week. I can just write down whatever is on my mind, which usually ends up being about Katniss, work on topics from our sessions, or choose something from a list he updates every few days. It isn't my favorite way to spend half an hour, but my focus now is on getting back to Twelve, and so I make sure to have at least one entry ready each time we meet.

He finishes reading and raises an eyebrow. "How much do you remember from that day?"

"Bits and pieces." I shrug, finishing the rest of my tea without really tasting it. "What's there is about it."

Dr. Aurelius nods. "Shall I read it back to you?"

I set the cup down, just in case this went badly. "Sure."

It's a test, but one I've fully consented to. Exposure to known triggers in a moderately controlled environment where we see if I can safely manage a flashback, should one occur.

Or in other words, _fun_.

He waits until I'm still, hands just barely twitching, to read, _"I never know if it's night or day. I think they prefer it that way. Today I’ve decided to call it morning. The guards knock me around for a few minutes, cuff me, and tie a hood over my head. They drag me down several hallways to a room that smells like the hospital where I woke up after my leg was amputated in the first Games, and strap me to a chair at the shoulders, elbows, and wrists . . ."_

Dr. Aurelius pauses and I blink, trying to remain calm.

"How are you feeling?" he asks gently.

"I don't know." Lowering my head, I take several deep breaths through my nose, which seemed like kind of a stupid exercise the first time Dr. Alexander had us all practice it together in a group, but somehow always winds up calming me down at least a little. "Kind of like I might be sick. It's . . . so vivid right now. Like I'm there again."

"Tell me," he encourages.

And so I describe the violation of a set of cold, gloved hands finding a vein. Gloved as if to protect _them_ from _me_ while inserting the needle that would introduce poison into my body. The sickening seconds of panic when I felt the venom start to flow, trying to hide the fact I was beginning to hallucinate until finally Cato's mutilated corpse reared up on two stumps that had once been feet to stab me in the thigh. The resulting laughter when I jerked in the restraints and began to scream, the hood quickly removed as images of Katniss began to flash across a screen.

Dr. Aurelius listens without ever looking away. And after I'm finished describing the electric shocks that served as a deterrent whenever I closed my eyes or turned my head a fraction of an inch in any direction, he slowly nods.

"Do you remember being taken back to your cell?"

“I don’t . . .” Slouching in the chair, I glance over the paintings hanging in between his bookcases, stopping on one of dark cavernous walls with small figures huddled around a single source of light, a depiction of what I'm pretty sure, like most of his artwork, is meant to represent Avoxes. "No. I . . . I’m not sure I ever remember being taken back. I think I would just . . . wake up there."

"Yes," Dr. Aurelius says quietly. "Tracker jacker venom has a documented amnestic effect, and even in doses much lower than yours typically causes loss of consciousness within minutes."

I frown. "Then how--"

"It wouldn't surprise me if they'd given you a stimulant of some sort mixed in with the venom to try to delay those effects as long as possible."

"That sounds dangerous."

"Yes." He stares out at the Capitol. "To successfully carry out the hijacking, they would have needed someone to administer the various drugs who was not only skilled enough to adjust dosages of a toxin known to cause a wide range of reactions from one subject to another, but also capable of monitoring your vital signs, someone who could jump in and resuscitate you if they went too far."

I process what he's saying. "A doctor, then."

"Yes." He turns back to face me, voice unchanged. "Or someone with a medical background." There's a pause and then he tilts his head. "Do you remember seeing anyone else there besides the guards?"

Swallowing, I shake my head. "There was . . . it was always so dark, even after they took the hood off. I’m pretty sure one of the walls had a window so they could observe me . . . like in Thirteen, but I couldn’t really turn my head far enough to get a good look at it without getting shocked."

There's a knock at the door. Dr. Aurelius ignores it. "How are you feeling?"

I shrug, but both of us can read the clock on the wall and I know he has another session right after mine.

He leans forward. "This is difficult work. And I suspect it's what’s exacerbating your nightmares. But--"

"I know," I interrupt softly. Because we've been over this. Too many times to count now. If I'm ever going to start getting better, _really_ better, we can't keep glossing over what happened in the Capitol. Ugly or not, there's no way around it. Only through it. Kind of like with the vines. "I'm okay. We can talk more this afternoon."

Dr. Aurelius follows me to the door. "How are you and Felix getting along?"

I snort. "He showed me the sign for _fuck off_."

"An important addition to your vocabulary, I'm sure." He squeezes my shoulder. "I’ll see you later today."

Nodding, I give the figures in the painting one last glance and duck out the door.

 

* * *

 

"The girl seem any better this morning?"

Precariously balanced halfway up a ladder, I curse, the question nearly causing me to lose my footing. Four hours, dozens of sacks of concrete, bent nails, and salvaged bricks, a plate of toast he'd flung at me in a barely coherent stupor when I tried to rouse him at half past seven so we could head over to the work site, and Haymitch waits until I'm about to drop a stack of shingles and fall flat on my ass in front of a bunch of miners to bring it up.

“For fuck’s sake, you . . .” I blow out a breath, starting again. “She . . .” But the words die in my throat. Frowning, I get a better grip on the shingles. "I don’t know.”

"Huh." Haymitch inspects one of the studs in the newly framed house, tone a little too curious. "Would seem like either she did or she didn’t.”

I step up the last two rungs, trying to ignore the hollowness threatening to spread through my chest.

“Stopped by to check on her before I left for town," Haymitch continues conversationally. “No one came to the door.”

I force my voice to remain even. "She went hunting."

“Usually a good sign.”

I don’t answer. Thom, who's been waiting at the top of the ladder to take the shingles, squints off at the storm clouds in the distance and wisely ignores our exchange. He's been unofficially heading up the rebuilding efforts in Twelve since the war ended nine months ago. Most people seem to respect him. He’s the type that leads by doing rather than a lot of talking, and that kind of thing goes a long way in Twelve.

"Thanks, Peeta." Thom relieves me of the load at the top of the ladder and carries the shingles across the half-finished roof where he and August Bray, another former miner, immediately pull hammers from their belts and start tacking them down.

Not wasting any time, I get a grip on the ladder and begin the laborious process of easing myself down one rung at a time. Haymitch notices and moves closer so he can brace the bottom of the ladder.

I steal a surreptitious look in the direction of the Meadow as soon as my boots sink into the soft, muddy earth. The roads were one of the first things cleared so that people and supplies would have a way to get through. And just like every other time I’ve checked this morning, the one leading to the Seam is empty but for a few stray cart tracks headed off in that direction.

A cough from Haymitch causes me to glance over. Heat creeps up my neck and without a word, I turn and we head for the supply cart.

“Looks like rain,” he remarks casually.

I dig my thumbs into my knuckles, knowing he means well, but unable to keep from picturing Katniss out in it. Crouched beneath a tree wet and shivering, dark strands of hair matted to her cold cheeks like damp fallen leaves on the forest floor.

“Yeah.”

The reply is hollow, and Haymitch seems to realize it, because for once he doesn’t push. Peering up at the sky, he mutters under his breath, "Damn fool idea being out here today in the first place."

I don't respond, waiting until Silas Cashel, who had to be almost fifty and sported burn scars snaking down both arms that rivaled mine, but still looked strong and wiry as a man half his age, hoisted a stack of shingles onto his shoulder and moved out of the way to step up to the cart. Haymitch wasn't entirely wrong. But after losing three days of work to the weather, it was hard to blame Thom either.

The hardest hit districts were receiving more aid now that industries critical to rebuilding were back in production. Teams of engineers, electricians, carpenters, and plumbers had been sent to Two, Eight, Eleven, and Twelve at Paylor's directive that every citizen in Panem have some sort of shelter before winter arrived. It had taken ten days of surveying and taking soil and water samples for the Capitol experts to come to the same conclusion everyone left in Twelve had known for months--that the only feasible option in the short term was to rebuild over the site adjacent to the old square. Most of the land between the Victor's Village and town fell at too steep a grade. Flattening it would require heavy machinery and would never be completed before the snow started to fall. And the fire in the mines had blanketed the Seam with toxic ash. Additives from the Capitol would help to neutralize the mercury and arsenic in the soil, and filters would remove it from the water, eventually rendering the injections we all had to periodically receive unnecessary, but to fully reverse the devastation the bombs had caused would take time. Not just months, but _years_. And in the meantime, no one would want to return to, much less _stay_ in Twelve with that sort of silent danger lurking in the very air they breathed.

The first cold drops of rain splatter the back of my neck just as I reach the bottom of the ladder. Shouts and muttered curses rise as the rain quickly picks up, scattered droplets swelling like the summer buzz of cicadas into a hard, drumming shower. The site dissolves into finely honed chaos, three weeks of working alongside miners, of earning every blister, every backache, and the occasional grudging nod of approval meted out despite my having grown up in town having taught me _nothing_ if not that there was no group of men and women on earth more capable of operating as a team under even the most unpleasant of conditions. Plastic tarps are secured over unfinished sections of roofing. Those on the ground form a human chain to transfer supplies from the carts to one of the half-completed houses that will provide shelter from the passing storm. And then there’s nothing left to do but wait it out.

Most days Sae and the four women helping her have at least sixty to cook for, more, recently since no one’s quite sure how the new housing assignment system will work, but most are assuming those with family members who put in hours will be on the list ahead of move-ins or latecomers who don’t contribute at all. The old system heavily favored married couples, particularly those who were merchants. If you were unwed or from the Seam, you faced a long waiting period, and usually were assigned the least desirable housing available. If you happened to be both, your chances of being assigned a house were slim to none.

Unless you happened to be a victor.

Needless to say, Katniss, Haymitch and I have received a few sour looks in the past month, although no one has said anything outright. With no other buildings in Twelve left habitable in the wake of the firebombings, each of the remaining houses in the Victor’s Village have eight to twelve people currently staying in them. With so many rooms, it’s still more space than anyone from Twelve had growing up, whether you were a townie or a miner, but I can’t say I don’t still feel guilty some evenings locking up an empty house and leaving for Katniss’ for the night.

“Here, boy.”

Haymitch pushes a hot bowl of stew into my hands. Distracted, I blink and reach for a roll from the basket I brought.

“Sorry.”

He follows, selecting one of the fluffy wheat buns. “You’ve been in a fog all morning.”

I shrug and we start trying to find an unoccupied corner of the room to sit down. He’s right, but I don’t particularly feel like talking about it. Finding nothing inside, we head out with a few of the others to the porch where it’s not quite as dry, but there’s a little more room. I've just settled into a space by the wall and am digging into my stew when Haymitch lets out a guffaw.

"Picked a hell of a day to go out, Sweetheart."

I turn so quickly the movement comes dangerously close to sloshing beef gravy across the front of my shirt. But I barely notice, relief after hours of worry in that moment such a tangible thing, I nearly slump over in its absence.

Katniss traces the toe of her boot through the water droplets trickling from her soaked clothes and carefully avoids my eye. I can only stare, taking in every detail from the smudges of dirt on her neck and clothes to the crushed leaf in her hair, only the dark circles under her eyes betraying two days spent lying listlessly with her head in my lap, responding in apathetic gestures and muffled noises, _if_ that.

"Hey," I say carefully, not wanting to do anything that might spook her.

 She shifts her game bag higher on her shoulder and tucks an escaped strand of hair behind one ear, still not noticing the leaf. "Hey."

There's an awkward pause. I clear my throat and reach over to pluck it out for her.

“Are you hungry? I think Sae made plenty--”

Katniss shakes her head. “I had some of the bread you made yesterday. And a few strawberries.”

I watch the tin bucket she tilts my way sway on its hinges, unable to ignore any longer the seed of _something_ nagging in the back of my mind. "So you, uh, went hunting?"

"To check the snare line." The silence stretches, and after a few seconds, she frowns. “Why?”

Exhaling slowly, I stare out at the rain. There was no denying being out in the woods had brought color to her cheeks, the mere act of slinging her game bag over one shoulder having drawn an echo of confidence back into her stance, and for that it was hard not to feel grateful no matter what had happened in the early hours of the morning.

Katniss puts down the strawberries and folds her arms, seeming to guess what I'm about to say. "I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t even five yet and . . . it seemed silly to wake you just to say I was going. Not when you were up so late baking the night before." Her tone grows more defensive with every word, and I force a tight smile, not particularly wanting to have this argument out here, in front of everybody.

"You sure you’re not hungry?" I say instead, holding up the stew and the bread. "We could split this."

But she looks away and fingers the worn leather strap of her bag. "I should clean these rabbits. Get some dry clothes. I'll just come over later like we planned." Brow furrowing as if the thought had just occurred to her, she glances up. "If you still want me to, that is."

The sound escapes before I can stop it, and with it, a wave of frustration that she even had to ask, that we had somehow worked ourselves into such an uncertain state over the last few weeks when for a while, things had been going so well.

"Of course I do. Do _you_ still want to?" I counter, watching her intently.

Katniss toes the ground, chewing her bottom lip for what seems like forever. Then shrugs, and nods.

I frown, finally annoyed enough to call her on the bullshit answer, but she turns and stalks off into the rainy afternoon before I can get the words out. It's around then that I notice most of the conversations in the immediate vicinity have petered off. That not only are our few remaining neighbors in Twelve sharing a meal with us, but now we’re once again providing the entertainment. Leaning back into the space by the wall, I sit down.

"Trouble in paradise?" Haymitch asks between bites of bread.

I start to shake my head, no more eager to give him the blow by blow than anyone else. But despite a lengthy list of shortcomings, Haymitch has been decent company as of late. And not the worst source of advice.

"Later," I mumble, trying not to stare down the road in the direction Katniss had gone.

 

* * *

 

The rain has finally stopped when I hear the front door open and quietly close. Smoothing the edge of the frosting bag, I carefully pipe a pattern of delicate twists and swirls around a large chocolate cupcake.

Katniss doesn't say anything when she enters the room, but I watch out of the corner of my eye as she slides onto a stool at the counter and lifts the towel off the warm cheese buns I've left out for her on a plate.

She bites into the first one, shoulders drooping with obvious pleasure as she chews rapturously. I hide a smile and take the last cupcake off the cooling rack, pretending not to notice the way she licks each of her fingers in turn before selecting the second largest one.

And as she nibbles at it, pacing herself this time, I feel some of the anger and frustration from earlier begin to ebb. There had been more _lost days_ , as she called them, as the last weeks of summer crept towards fall, a shift in mood that had found her bound for the woods alone on many of the mornings she felt energetic enough to get out of bed. Torn over what to do, I tried to give her space, desperate to care for her but highly conscious of the promise I'd made not to treat her any differently in the wake of her depressive episodes. That her bad days were no different from my flashbacks, and largely out of her control.

But it felt like a lie not to admit that after the talk we'd had, plus the sessions with Dr. Aurelius, I'd hoped things would feel different between us. Not that it would have necessarily changed the status of our relationship in any physical sense, the kiss at the lake and the one the following day on her sofa having demonstrated we still had a long way to go, but that we would gradually be moving closer together, rather than drifting further apart.

Finishing with the cupcakes, I carefully push the cake stand over to one side of the counter and start cleaning up. Katniss watches me, our eyes cautiously meeting as she takes her last bite of cheese bun.

"Good?" I raise an eyebrow, flipping on the faucet to wash out the frosting bag.

"Mmm."

I watch her methodically search for fallen crumbs, scouring the counter as if she worried we wouldn’t be eating again for a week. Then pick at fingernails that had already been chewed to shreds. Frowning, I finish rinsing the decorating tools and shut off the water.

"Are you feeling okay?" I ask quietly, pretty sure she was going to be pissed at me for bringing it up, but after two days of having to be the one to get her out of bed and coax her into showering, of trying to convince her to put on something other than pajamas and eat a meal that was more nutritious than toast, of having her lay on the couch with her head in my lap, staring blankly at an empty fireplace while I tied knots in her hair and tried to keep up a one-sided conversation, only to wake up on the third morning and find her _gone_ , it's hard to keep biting my tongue.

Katniss shrugs and chews her lip, starting to jab at her nail beds with greater force.

I toss the dishtowel on the counter and slide onto the stool next to hers, covering her hands with one of mine to stop her from hurting herself. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Pulling away, she licks her lips, seeming to consider the answer for a beat. "I--"

Half a minute passes in silence while I watch her brow furrow from the effort to form the words, ending in a huff of frustration shortly before the timer on the oven goes off. Squeezing her fingers, I slide off the stool, go over to check on the turkey pot pie and lower the temperature.

Katniss is tracing one of the long veins in the stone countertop when I return.

"Sorry 'bout that." I slide onto a stool beside her and reach up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, but she stiffens the moment my hand comes close.

The room grows uncomfortably quiet, time seeming to come to a standstill as I stare down at the counter, understanding then with absolute certainty that something really was wrong, that this was different from her previous bad spells that seemed to materialize and evaporate with little rhyme or reason.

I take a breath, knowing what her reaction would be and no longer caring. "I think you should call Dr. Aurelius before dinner.”

And sure enough, no sooner have the words left my lips than Katniss juts out her chin, eyes flashing. "We just talked yesterday. And you and I have a session tomorrow morning--"

"I don't care,” I say in a low voice. “I'm worried about you."

"I'm _fine_." She grinds both fists into the countertop, jaw tightening visibly. "How much longer until we eat?"

“Don’t change the subject.” Not backing down even when she glowers at me, I shake my head. "You're _not_ fine. You haven't been fine for weeks.”

Glaring one final time, Katniss slides off the stool and stalks from the room. I wait, chest heaving, fully expecting to hear my front door slam a few seconds later. When it doesn’t, I pace to the window and back to burn off some steam, finally bending over the counter and lowering my head.

Dr. Aurelius tells me to try to get to ten when I’m angry, more if I’m not sure I can answer with a clear head as opposed to firing back with whatever is necessary in order to win the argument. Today, I make it to five before the anxious flutter in my chest becomes unbearable as a swarm of bloodthirsty butterflies.

I find Katniss in the study behind one of the fat overstuffed armchairs, staring silently out at the dreary gray sky and chewing her nails down to the quick. She doesn't say anything when I come up behind her and gently tug her hand away from her mouth, but doesn't really try to fight me either.

I lick my lips, searching for the right words, because this is something Dr. Aurelius has been working with us on in our joint sessions each week, something neither of us has ever been particularly good at. Bringing up issues when they _first_ start to bother us, not holding them in until we're really pissed and then blowing up over them later.

"I woke up, and you were _gone._ ” Hard as I try to keep my voice even, it still grows rough at the end. “No note. Nothing. Just . . . _gone._ "

Katniss makes a sound under her breath, muttering something I can’t quite make out, except for the words _have to_ and _note_.

I close my eyes, teeth gritted. “Not _have_ to, just--”

She pulls her hand from mine, tone accusatory. "I've never left one before."

"Well, maybe you should start," I snap, watching as her face turns stony. The room grows deathly quiet, and somewhere in the back of my mind a warning bell goes off, but I plow ahead anyway. "I was _worried_."

For a second, I think I see something flicker in her expression. But whatever it is vanishes before I can pin it down.

"Well, I didn’t mean to worry you," she says woodenly, like a child forced to recite an apology for spilling something or go without supper.

Frustrated, I scrub a hand through my hair, unable to put a name to what was bothering me most. Annoyance, that after days of caring for her so tenderly, she couldn't be bothered with such a small, simple thing to let me know she was safe. Hurt at the indifference in her tone. And to top it off--

"I thought we were . . . that you and I--" I close my eyes, starting again. "Sometimes it doesn't seem like you're . . . all in."

Katniss bristles, turning to face me. " _All in?_ What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that--" I trail off as anger darkens her features, unsure if there was any way to say what was really bothering me without completely pissing her off. "Sometimes I can't tell if it's just that you’re having a bad day, or something else."

"Something else?" she echoes, eyes narrowing.

I don’t look away. "That day we talked . . . kissed . . . I asked you, after, if you were sure that _this_ ," I gesture between us, "was what you wanted." She frowns and I kick at the braided rug, not really wanting to say it, but needing more than anything to hear her confirm or deny the worry that for weeks had been steadily growing in the shadowed corners of my mind. "And now it seems like maybe you regret it."

Katniss opens her mouth to speak, then closes it, shoulders sagging.

"No, that's--"

I wait.

After a long moment, she lets out a huff. "I don't regret it."

"Then what is it?" I prod, watching her twist uncomfortably. "Are you mad at me? Did I do something?"

And in the second of hesitation before she looks away, I know I’ve pried free a kernel of truth.

"Maybe we should just talk tomorrow," she finally mumbles. “With Dr. Aurelius.”

Stepping closer, I take her shoulders. "Please tell me what’s wrong so we can fix it."

Katniss squirms and turns to stare out the window, hair spilling over one shoulder and skimming her collarbone. "It was the night I roasted the duck and you had a flashback."

I watch her carefully. "Okay . . . "

She closes her eyes. “Do we have to do this right now?”

I ignore her. "That's why you’ve been upset?"

Katniss won’t look at me.

"I thought we talked about that night, and then,” I run a hand through my hair, “hugged and made up. Got past it. _Weeks_ ago."

Katniss shakes her head, but it's obvious the question isn’t completely off-base from the way her cheeks pick up color.

"Dr. Aurelius has been talking to me about . . . stuff. From Thirteen.” She hesitates. “Helping me to see how they’re like the way things were after my father died and my mother--"

She doesn’t finish, the emptiness that clouds her eyes speaking volumes.

"What sorts of things?" I ask quietly, knowing it’s not going to be an answer I like when she starts to fidget again. “Like when I attacked you?”

I wait, but Katniss only bites her lip, not even daring to come near the question with a shrug.

Losing patience, I exhale. “The thing with Delly?” She still doesn’t respond. “The night of Finnick and Annie’s wedding when you came to see me?”

Katniss covers her face with both hands. “I don’t know. Just . . . all of it.”

I frown. "So you left this morning without saying anything to punish me?"

 _"No."_ Scowling, she pulls away. "I needed to think."

“Well I hope you had enough time to figure things out,” I reply coldly.

Something changes in her expression, and I’ve just begun to shake my head, to try to take the words back even though some latent, neglected part of me can’t help but feel shouted down in response, when she brushes past me.

“I’m not hungry. You should just eat without me.”

 _"Katniss."_ I reach for her arm, but she neatly sidesteps me. “Don’t do this.”

I follow as she weaves her way through my living room towards the front hallway, starting to call her name once more just as she slips out the door. But as I watch her hair swirl behind her, lustrous and dark as a paintbrush dipped in seething hues to capture the violence of an angry night sky, something stops me. From going any further. From begging. From chasing her down the porch steps and pursuing her across the lawn.

Instead I slump tiredly against the jamb, the syllables of her name forming an empty ache as I try desperately to avoid thinking of the long night ahead.

“Katniss,” I whisper, unable to stop myself from looking up, from staring across the porches that separate hers from mine on the off chance I might catch a glimpse of her as she stormed past the primroses, to see if that small reminder of my love for her might cause her to reconsider.

But by then she's already gone.

 

* * *

 

_What's on?_

I glance over at the small erasable board Felix is holding up and pull the second knot in my shoelaces tight.

"Usual shit. Replay of tryouts for that dumb singing show." Waiting until he toes off his shoes and flops onto the sofa across from me, I grin. “You missed your girlfriend."

Felix just rolls his eyes.

Along with the extra space of the connecting suite, our new rooming arrangement comes with additional privileges, a wall-mounted television screen flanked by a pair of couches, and a small eating area just across from the door where Felix and I, along with Chip and Lael, who share the other connecting room, eat breakfast and dinner together.

After two months of doing pretty much everything alone, it's different, but not in a bad way. Chip is a little . . . _off_ and Lael never says much, even to Felix, but it's still an improvement over spinning circles in my own head all the time. Dr. Aurelius assured me the doctors were confident I could handle it, and after feeling for months like I wasn’t making any progress, taking _‘a critical intermediate step in determining my readiness to eventually leave the hospital’_ only makes me twice as eager to work hard and get home to Katniss.

Felix gestures to my shoes and then slowly signs two of the twenty or so simple words I’ve managed to pick up since we became roommates. _You leaving?_

"Physical therapy got pushed back." I finish with my laces and slouch back on the sofa. "Just waiting for them to come get me."

He gets up and goes over to the small keypad next to the mouthpiece on the wall to type something in. In between meals, we're now allowed to order from a list of five snack foods, stuff like popcorn and oatmeal that someone determined was harmless enough for us to have whenever we wanted it. Felix and I had a good laugh the first day we read the menu over, pantomiming Dr. Aurelius and Dr. Lucius examining grilled cheese sandwiches and tiny dishes of applesauce, trying to brainstorm ways to turn them into weapons.

I'm just about to ask Felix if he wants to play a quick game of checkers when the singing program abruptly cuts off and is replaced by an image of Cressida. Her eyes are hard, the sides of her head freshly shaved, her hair swirling in the harsh wind, and I can’t help the sudden pang in my chest at the thought of Katniss. Her lips are moving, but there’s no sound, not that Felix appears to care from the way he’s leaning in closer like he’s about to kiss the screen. I snort, searching for a pillow to throw at him when without warning her voice cuts in.

"--receiving reports that representatives from the security forces of united Panem will shortly announce the capture of Dr. Gai Ashburn, former Director of Research at the Frost Institute and suspected mastermind behind the torture of hundreds of political prisoners in the months leading up to and during the war, including victors, Annie Cresta, Johanna Mason, and Peeta Mellark--"

Stunned, I sit forward, watching as Cressida frowns at something off-camera, and then whips her head around towards a hovercraft approaching in the distance.

"According to sources, Dr. Gai was apprehended hiding among refugees in the mountains of--"

The sound cuts out again. I blink only when my eyes begin to burn, unable to tear myself away from the screen even though the picture is shaking from the force of the wind the hovercraft is stirring up and staring at it is starting to give me a headache. A light tapping to my right causes me to jerk.

Felix holds up his hands guardedly. _You o-k?_ he signs.

The annoyed sound escapes before I can help it, and he backs off. I turn to the screen just in time for Cressida's voice to break in sharply.

"--fueling speculation what will happen now." The image stabilizes and in the background, I can just make out the main bay of the hovercraft opening. "According to unconfirmed reports, other agents suspected of carrying out acts of torture are either unaccounted for, or have been found dead from undisclosed causes. Dr. Gai--"

But I’m no longer listening. Four soldiers wearing the dishwater gray uniform of District Thirteen disembark the aircraft. And as the camera moves in on the figure they're escorting towards an unfamiliar door, I feel nothing but numbness. Overall he's unremarkable. Middle-aged and not particularly tall. Short, dark hair sprinkled liberally with gray. Tattoos visible on both wrists that seem to extend up his arms. Nothing in his face that registers, no matter how long I stare, searching for something. _Anything._

I jump at the knock at the door, but don't turn, noting absently the weird ringing in my ears, and that all of a sudden I'm dizzy, almost nauseated. I hear my name called sharply, the floor rushing up to greet me before I have the chance to answer.

* * *

Voices fade in and out as I rotate weightless in a dark, bottomless sea, each crash of the waves upon some far off shore stirring me about like a discarded bit of broken shell. Unable to tell up from down. Day from night. Real from not real.

After what seems like hours of clawing towards the frothy surface of the water, I feel the rasp of a sheet under my fingertips and the beginnings of dull pain thrumming in my temples. Machines purr all around me with the menacing rumble of circling jungle cats, distorting a low conversation off in the distance as I struggle to open my eyes.

"--will depend how all this plays out."

There's a sound halfway between a cough and a dark sort of laugh, and I'm caught by surprise when it's Dr. Aurelius' voice that follows. "Yes, well, I wish I shared your confidence they were trustworthy."

Whatever follows is warped by the noise from the machines. I blink, turning my head to find an unfamiliar room, Dr. Lucius standing with his arms folded a few feet away.

"--unfortunately for us, you can bet he's far too good to make that sort of--"

"Peeta," Dr. Aurelius interrupts, noticing I'm awake. He comes over to the side of the bed and flashes a small light in my eyes, something he _knows_ I hate when my head hurts. "How are you feeling?"

Grimacing, I lean away from the light. "What happened?"

Dr. Aurelius doesn’t react, but out of the corner of my eye I catch Dr. Lucius watching me with something that could almost be concern. "You had an episode, and then lost consciousness."

He comes around to the other side of the bed, looking Capitol as ever in a noxious lemon yellow shirt most men in Twelve would have walked out of the house buck naked before wearing. Even in the dead of winter. "Do you know what day it is?"

I have to think about it. "Thursday?” There’s an exchanged look. “How long was I out?"

After I barely keep from slurring the words, another silent conversation takes place, not that it's too hard to guess they're pretty freaked out. And then Dr. Lucius leaves the room. A nurse with intricate swirling tattoos on her arms and at least four piercings in each ear comes in to take some readings from the machines, which seems silly with all the technology they have, and then Dr. Aurelius asks her to step out and begins putting me through a battery of neurological tests.

The usual post-episode fog is going strong, jumbling up every thought I try to form, and I’m struggling to come up with responses to his questions, the memory of what had happened reduced to flashes. Tendrils of feeling. Nothing solid enough to grasp onto. I’m exhausted. Frustrated. My hands won’t quit shaking, and I’m about one question away from losing my patience when Dr. Aurelius finally gives me a break. Slumping back against the pillows, I watch as he crosses the small room to retrieve a chair.

"What was Dr. Lucius doing here?"

I get one of those curious tilts of the head in response. "He's a member of your treatment team and I value his input."

Sitting up slightly, I examine the IV and monitoring equipment taped to my arm at the elbow and wrist. "So how long was I out?"

"Just under an hour."

"Wow." For a second, I just gape like an idiot. “That’s . . . I haven’t had one like that since--”

“Yes. It’s been a while.” He takes a seat in an armchair, and it's hard not to notice how much more comfortable the furniture looks here compared to the psych floor, although I guess there's also far less risk of it being thrown when the patients can barely move and aren't convinced the curtains are woven out of snakes. "Tell me what you remember."

"That seems really bad."

Dr. Aurelius seems to think over his next words carefully. "It's considerable. Particularly given your most recent trends."

I start to rub the scar from Katniss' teeth, and for once, he doesn't try to stop me. "I was . . . Felix and I were watching television."

“Yes.”

My hands start feeling twitchy. At first I frown, wondering if it’s an after-effect of the episode, or maybe because of something one of the nurses gave me, and it isn’t until Dr. Aurelius silently draws a syringe from his coat pocket that things start to click into place.

“I don’t need it,” I argue immediately, attempts to still the twitching in my hands only causing it to spread to my arms and shoulders. _Fuck_. 

“This isn’t up for discussion. Not given what happened earlier and your response to trying to recall the memory now."

He injects the morphling into a port close to my arm. No longer fighting, I watch the drug inch closer, battling twin urges to rip out my own hair and curl into a ball.

“What if it . . . you know.” Leaving the rest unsaid, I look away.

"It’s a low dose you should burn off within six hours or so.  Any side effects should dissipate not long after that."

I let my head flop back on the pillow as the medication starts to kick in, knowing from the answer that he understands what I'm worried about, that it's going to fuck me up again, like the doctors in Thirteen did before, when it's taken so long to get to the point where sometimes, even if it’s just for a few seconds, I _almost_ feel traces of me again.

I pick at the blanket. "Did Felix tell you what happened?"

"Yes."

"Everything?"

"Yes." He gives me a minute. "You said you remembered seeing something on television."

I frown slightly, because I _hadn't_ said that, not exactly. And then, with just that tiny nudge, details start to trickle back. Cressida. The gray uniforms that never fail to make my stomach hurt. A hovercraft. The flickering memory of a man nearly obscured by a detail of guards.

The haze of the morphling makes it hard to keep my thoughts straight long enough to form a complete sentence, and I start more of them than I finish, but Dr. Aurelius listens patiently while I stumble through the details that surface, until eventually it feels like we're just going in circles.

"I didn't recognize him." It’s at least the fifth or sixth time I’ve said it, and I stopped meeting his eyes after the third, not wanting to examine too closely whether it was really _him_ I was trying to convince, or me. "At least, I don't think I did. I don’t have any idea if we even met or not."

But if Dr. Aurelius is losing patience, he doesn't let on. "I don’t know that it’s particularly productive for you to worry about that right at the moment. I understand it must feel hard _not_ to, given the shock and the suddenness of all this, but I think there are just too many variables in your case to make any determination for sure without knowing more.”

“Variables like what?” I demand, messing with the lid of the juice cup off the tray by my bed.

Dr. Aurelius rubs his beard, looking like he’s debating whether discussing this with me at all is a good idea. “We talked before about the amnestic effects of the venom,” he waits until I nod to go on, “which in combination with the mind’s natural tendency to lock away particularly painful memories in an attempt to protect itself from further trauma, could be preventing you from accessing events you once _did_ have conscious awareness of now.”

“So I could have met him, and talked with him . . . dozens of times even, and forgotten all about it?”

“Theoretically, yes.”

I make a sound under my breath.

“It’s also possible you never met at all,” he says, more gently. “Or that if he was there, he stayed behind the partition.”

I digest this. "In the news report . . . they sounded pretty convinced. That he was the one who did it.”

Dr. Aurelius doesn’t say anything in response.

Frowning, I pick up the juice cup and toss it from hand to hand. “So how do you think they could know for sure?"

“Right now, I think it’s too soon to--”

“You know what I’m asking,” I interrupt. “Please don’t bullshit me."

He’s silent for a long time. "Whoever it was couldn’t have been working alone. There would have had to have been others who came into contact with him or her by pure necessity . . . guards from the prison, technicians, low-level workers . . . all of whom would’ve corroborated the same story."

I study him in silence. "You talked to Paylor?"

"Someone from her office, yes."

Nodding, I trace over the scar from Katniss' teeth, unable to suppress a sudden wave of loneliness, wondering if back in Twelve, she or Haymitch had heard what had happened, wishing I was just about anywhere but in a hospital room in the Capitol, hundreds of miles from home. "What are they going to do with him?"

"No one’s saying at this point." He shrugs and checks his watch. “Or at least, not to me.”

"Do _you_ think he did it?"

Dr. Aurelius stares out at the Capitol skyline for a long moment, expression unreadable. "I don’t know.”

I give up on getting a response to that one, at least for the time being. "Do you know him?"

He doesn’t answer immediately. "Not personally, no." In the quiet that follows, he rises from the chair. "I'm afraid I need to return upstairs. I'll have one of the nurses check your vitals in half an hour, then arrange for you to be transferred to your room."

Peeling open the juice cup, I take a swallow. It’s orange today, the flavor tinny and canned, but still delicious. Dr. Aurelius is almost to the door when one last question surfaces through the muddying fog of morphling.

"Do you know what happened to them . . . the guards, the technicians?"

He lowers his keycard. Slowly turns. And as his eyes meet mine, I know that despite the deal we made almost two weeks ago when Katniss and Haymitch left, that provided I demonstrate the ability to remain focused on my personal goals with regards to my recovery and limit our conversations about what Katniss was doing back in Twelve to once per week, he wouldn’t restrict my access to information that pertained to me, whatever follows will be some kind of lie.

"They haven’t said."

When I don’t respond, he goes. Fiddling with the lid of the empty juice cup, I watch the light fade from the afternoon sky, wondering what it was that Dr. Aurelius had to hide.

 

* * *

 

Shortly before nine the following morning, I climb the steps to Katniss' porch, wipe my boots on her mat, and bang my fist just to the right of her fancy brass knocker.

Loudly.

In the minute or so that it takes for her to come to the door, I imagine all sorts of reactions. That she'll be too pissed to bother getting up. That she'll ignore me just as she had the night before, this time leaving me outside on her stoop instead of getting a backache from sleeping on the hard wooden floor out in the hall, pleading with her every time the toilet flushed just to let me know she was all right. That Sae will be sent to get rid of me _again_ , the only thing more humiliating than sitting at the dinner table alone, poking halfheartedly at a turkey pot pie that tasted like ash while staring at a plate of chocolate cupcakes with frosted swirls and delicate fondant katniss flowers whose recipient didn't care enough to join you being caught in the act of stalking them outside their bedroom door because you'd had, as the older woman put it, a _lover's quarrel_.

Never do I expect the door to slowly open and reveal a Katniss with red-rimmed eyes and cheeks puffy from crying.

And angry and frustrated as I am at her, the sight of it absolutely guts me.

She doesn't say anything, just pushes the door open a little wider and steps back so I can come in. Once we reach the study, she makes a beeline for her usual end of the sofa and tucks her legs up without looking at me.

I take a seat as well, trying to ignore the pile of pillows she’s obviously set up to form a barrier between us. "Do you want to call him, or should I?"

At this, Katniss falters. "I, um . . ."

And it’s then that I notice the speaker button glowing red where the phone rests in its sleek black station. There’s an uncomfortable silence while she stares out the window.

"Peeta, I apologize.” Dr. Aurelius’ voice fills the room. “I wanted to check in with Katniss before we got started since she wasn’t feeling well earlier in the week.” He waits a few seconds. "How are you doing this morning?"

I let out a slow breath. There really wasn't a good response to that one. Worried sick. Frustrated. Pissed. Trying to hold it all in for the sake of not upsetting her. And now annoyed at both of them. Dr. Aurelius had maintained from the beginning he was there to facilitate discussion, not take sides, and even though I’d spent the previous day practically begging her to call him, knowing she'd gotten an early jump on things just to tell him about our fight while I wasn’t in the room pisses me off.

"I don't know."

From the corner of my eye, I watch Katniss blink and look away. Dr. Aurelius remains as unfazed as ever.

"I'm not sure I understand that answer. Can you tell me more?"

Barking out a tired laugh, I let my head slump back against the couch cushions, wondering if all head doctors had to take a class in playing things off as if the fault were confusion on their end, rather than a patient dicking them around.

"I just spent the night on the floor. And before that it was two days of having to drag her out of bed, hide anything sharp in the bathroom, wait outside while she showered and dressed, then beg her to eat . . . _five_ bites of what I cooked. And then watching her lie there, not moving, not smiling, barely _breathing_ for two fucking days." I glance at Katniss only to discover she's frowning, too. "And then yesterday I woke up and she was gone. And I felt like I was going to be sick all morning until I saw her over at the work site."

Dr. Aurelius gives me a moment. "Why?"

It's hard to keep from groaning because he always wants us to spell _everything_ out. Even when the answer is obvious as the smell of smoke going with fire. "I was worried."

The line briefly goes quiet. "Katniss, may I ask you something?"

She fingers her mug of tea. "I guess."

I roll my eyes. It’s muttered with about the same enthusiasm that a cat contemplates the idea of prowling around in a rainstorm, but if Dr. Aurelius notices, he doesn’t let on.

"How does it make you feel to hear Peeta say he was worried about you?"

I watch her start to pick at her thumbnail. "I never leave a note."

"We'll get to that in just a minute.” Dr. Aurelius pauses. “Can you answer my question first?"

Katniss sighs audibly, and puts the mug down with a clunk. "I don't know. Bad, I guess? But it's not . . . I never _meant_ to worry him."

"Have you ever left that early before?"

Her eyes cut away from mine. 

"Sometimes," she mumbles.

I shake my head, voice low. "It's been months, maybe since early in the summer. And things are different between us now."

The look I’m met with is scathing. Ignoring it, I trace my fingertip over the thin pinkish lines arranged in a small half-moon on the back of my hand, the scar from her teeth having faded so cleanly in the past few months it barely stands out among all the others that form an intricate spider web up my arms.

"Peeta, do you believe Katniss when she says her actions were unintentional?"

The temperature in the room seems to drop twenty degrees, but I plow ahead anyway. "I don’t know what to believe." I turn to Katniss, who doesn't react other than to shift a little on the couch, face impassive. "Yesterday it seemed like you were mad at me, and you said something happened the night I had the flashback."

Her mouth starts to quiver.

"Katniss?" Dr. Aurelius prompts. 

She fidgets in place, tucking her hair behind one ear.

"You pushed me away." Her eyes stay focused on the too-large sleeve of her hunting jacket as she plays with the cuff. "Started yelling. Told me and Haymitch not to," she lifts her chin and quickly swipes a hand across her cheeks, "' _fucking follow you_ ,' and stormed out." 

I stare out her window, heat creeping up my neck. The room grows very quiet.

"How did it make you feel, Katniss?" Dr. Aurelius asks after a moment.

She swallows. "Sick? I . . . Haymitch started swearing. He didn't know which one of us to stay with." She picks at her already ragged nail beds. "I told him to go to you."

Getting up, I bypass her wall of cushions and move closer, tucking an arm across the back of her shoulders. She lets me, but doesn’t meet my eye.

"What happened then?" Dr. Aurelius prompts.

Katniss' shoulders hunch a little more, and I trace the back of her neck lightly in response.

"I just stood there . . . for I don't know how long. Eventually I went to bed."

Softly smoothing her hair behind one ear, I lean over to press my lips to her temple. “I’m sorry.”

It’s the barest of whispers, an apology that, just like all the ones I’ve made before, won’t come close to making up for hurting her. Katniss blinks, eyes suddenly bright with the threat of tears.

"How did you feel?" Dr. Aurelius asks again in a careful tone, quiet, but insistent.

I watch her draw slow, deliberate breaths, as if anything more might shift the balance in her battle not to cry. "Helpless. And then later, angry."

"Why?"

Katniss’ mouth trembles. "It was like Thirteen. Like I was back there again."

“In what way?” Dr. Aurelius presses. “Take a minute, if you need to. This is important.”

She chews her thumbnail, face screwing up in agitation. Finally, she exhales. “You left me.” Her voice wavers, and she turns towards the window, like she wished she could run out into the woods instead of being here. “Just like before.”

The words are harsh, accusatory. Katniss blinks, a tear streaking down the smooth apple of her cheek. I try to gently tug her closer, and when she resists, settle for running my hands down her arms.

"I’m sorry,” I tell her again, keeping my voice as even as possible. “I wish now that I could take back how I acted that night. I was . . . I was _humiliated_. It’s . . . I know you can’t really understand what it’s like for me to come out of an episode, having no idea _what_ I might have done or said while I was out, but it’s completely disorienting and terrifying.”

I wait, but Katniss just stares down at her hands, fingers knotting tighter and tighter until they’re balled into fists. “You’re doing it again. Like yesterday.”

Frowning, I brush a tear off her cheek. “Doing what?”

She closes her eyes. "Not listening to me."

“I’m sitting right here, listening to you,” I counter gently.

“No, you’re _not_ ,” she huffs, pulling away from me.

“Katniss, c’mon,” I mutter, scrubbing a hand through my hair.

“No, you . . . were, and then you,” she exhales again, brow furrowed so deeply I want to tell her to cut it out before she gives herself one of those awful, splitting headaches, “everything always ends up coming back to you. And I get ignored.”

“Wow, Kat.” Pulling my arm from the back of the couch, I rub my face with both hands. “Really? Ignored, like when I’ve been _begging_ you to talk to me for the past three weeks and you just sit there and stare at the wall?”

She looks the other way.

I shake my head. “I know my episodes are no picnic to deal with . . . but you _really_ think I like having to drag you to the shower, or spend an hour pleading with you to eat something? I don’t know how you can call that getting fucking ignored.”

Dr. Aurelius clears his throat, voice holding a warning. "Peeta."

I take several deep breaths, focusing on the edge of the coffee table. Katniss hugs a pillow close to her chest.

"It hurt me, everything that happened," she says quietly, toeing at a crack on the floor. "I know I'm not good at saying what I feel. I'll _never_ be as good as you. But you aren’t the only one who got hurt in all of this. You hurt me, too."

"By not being there for you in Thirteen?" I retort, unable to suppress the sarcasm that bleeds into my tone. "Did you mean the first month you were there, while I was busy being tortured, or after, when you couldn't be bothered to come see me because you were too occupied with Gale?"

"Peeta," Dr. Aurelius interrupts in a sharper tone, and I know this time I either can it or Katniss is going to be excused and our hour will end with a stern talking to for me followed by a long seven-day wait before we can try again. _If_ she even wants to, which seems less likely with every passing minute.

I fold my arms and try to force my breathing to slow. Katniss has gone back to staring out the window like I don't even exist to her and as usual it just pisses me off more.

"Why don’t we try an exercise," Dr. Aurelius suggests, when another minute goes by without either of us attempting to say anything to the other. "It promotes active listening. I will ask the questions to one person at a time. After the first person has finished, I will ask the second to restate _only_ what they heard the other person say, in their own words." He waits. "Are we agreed?"

After a moment, Katniss huffs. "Fine."

"Peeta?" 

"I guess," I grumble, pissed at him, too.

"Excellent. Katniss, I'm going to begin with you. Please look at Peeta and in a few sentences, tell him how you _feel_."

The sound of static obscures whatever he says next. I take a deep breath, biting back the urge to point out she already got to go first, and that she didn't seem to have any trouble saying how she felt while announcing to our whole fucking squadron that shooting me would be just like shooting another of the Capitol's mutts.

Katniss frowns and all but disregards the instructions, hair partially obscuring her face. "Whenever we talk about what happened during the war, it always ends up being about you. How _you_ were abandoned, hurt."

I wait as she traces her finger along a small tasseled pillow's edge, the sound she makes in the back of her throat strangled.

"You bring it up over and over and over again. That I left and went to Two. That Gale and I," she chews her lip, measuring her words carefully, "that things happened the way they did. You hurt me, too."

"How did he hurt you, Katniss?" Dr. Aurelius says quietly. "I need you to be specific."

She loops the tassel slowly around one finger, twisting until it threatens to cut off her circulation.

"You . . . before. You thought I was--" She lifts her chin, quickly blinking. "You told me you had been in love with me since forever. That when I sang, the birds stopped to listen. You brought over cheese buns every day without me ever having to tell you they were my favorite. And then after--"

She cuts off sharply. Dr. Aurelius waits a few seconds, then clears his throat.

"Peeta, can you tell me what you heard Katniss say just now?"

I swallow, something hollow having lodged itself in my chest. "She thinks when we talk about stuff, we only talk about me. But she was hurt, too." When I pause, Katniss swipes at a tear streaking past the edge of her nose, hesitantly looking my way. "Before the hijacking, I used to tell her I'd been in love with her since forever. That when she sang, the birds stopped to listen. And I brought her cheese buns every day."

"Thank you," Dr. Aurelius says as soon as I fall silent. "Katniss, I want you to keep going where you left off, but this time focus on using language that starts with _I feel_ rather than _you._ "

"After--" She leans over to the desk for a handful of tissues, taking her time in drying her face before blowing out a breath. "You didn't remember. Any of it. What we'd been through. How you used to feel about me. You thought I was ugly . . . a monster and a murderer. I wanted you back, but you didn't want me."

Delicately as if I were trying to lift an injured bird, I reach for her hand. Katniss' eyes brim with fresh tears, but this time she lets me take it, fingers curling tentatively in mine.

She wipes her nose and clears her throat. "I was . . . confused. Angry . . . ashamed. That I didn't know what to do. Couldn't . . . help you."

"You felt powerless," Dr. Aurelius interjects softly.

Katniss lets out a breath, and in that moment of hesitation, something in her voice seems to harden. "I came to see you, and you called me a mutt. Told me I wasn't particularly pretty." Her fingers go limp in mine. "You forgot you used to make me cheese buns."

Guilt punches me in the center of the chest. But with it, the simmering burn of resentment. Because as much as I know the old Peeta Mellark would’ve felt nothing but the urge to comfort her, something about the accusation still stings with the rawness of a fresh wound. That she could _ever_ dare hold against me something the hijackers had brutally stripped from my mind, that she had the gall to feel put out over the weeks I’d been undergoing torture, when at times I'd been beaten and drugged to the point I couldn't even recall my own name.

 _"I felt,"_ Dr. Aurelius prompts gently.

Her brow furrows. "I felt . . . betrayed. Alone."

"Abandoned," he supplies.

The stiffness seems to drain from her posture. Clearing her throat, she whispers the word. "Yes."

"Peeta, can you restate what you heard Katniss say?"

I stare down at our linked hands.

"You felt like I didn't want you anymore." I recite the words dully, tempted to ask how much she could have _really_ wanted me back if she'd already been kissing Gale at that point. "I called you a mutt. Said you weren't pretty. Forgot how to make your cheese buns--"

"That’s sufficient, thank you," Dr. Aurelius interjects quietly.

Exhaling hard, I let go of Katniss' hand, and she doesn't fight to maintain the contact. We sit in uncomfortable silence until at last Dr. Aurelius clears his throat.

"Peeta, what's going through your head right now?"

I let my foot tap against the floor for a few seconds, anger causing my heart to pound so fast it’s hard to think straight. "I feel like every time I've had an episode and been embarrassed afterward, or felt guilty over something I did as a result of the hijacking, and both of you fell all over yourselves trying to tell me it wasn't my fault, it was complete bullshit." Neither of them says anything, and I let out a low laugh. "Clearly on some level, you _do_ blame me."

Katniss won't look at me. I fold my arms and stare hard at her profile.

"I think it's unfair of you to say you wanted me back and that _I_ didn't want _you_ when you and Gale had already kissed by then."

The sharp breath she sucks in feels both victorious and like I've just been stabbed.

“Peeta,” Dr. Aurelius warns again, but I ignore him.

"And do you know what the best part is?" I continue slowly, enunciating every word. "You’re not sorry. Not for any of it."

Katniss turns, frowning.

"We talk about things and you hold my hand. I've apologized to you _over_ and _over_ again. And you never say you’re sorry." Our eyes stay locked, and through my peripheral vision I can see her shoulders are starting to shake. "You haven’t said it _once_."

"That's not true," she argues. "I told you I was sorry at the lake."

"You said you should have been there after my rescue, but that you wouldn't apologize for the rest of it and _'the Peeta you knew wouldn't have asked you to.'_ " I wait a beat, not backing down even when she glowers at me. "That's not an apology."

The room goes very still. And after a long moment, Dr. Aurelius clears his throat.

"Katniss, can you tell Peeta in your own words what you heard him say?"

Her teeth grind together. "He thinks I'm a liar."

The laugh escapes before I can help it, and I can practically hear Dr. Aurelius frowning at me over the phone line as he reminds Katniss not to insert her reactions into this part of it. That she is to restate _only_ what I said.

Katniss huffs. "He thinks I lied when I said his episodes aren't his fault. And about wanting him back because," she closes her eyes, face twisting, "when I kissed Gale, everything in my head was jumbled." She toys with the edge of the pillow. "And he says I haven't told him I'm sorry."

Dr. Aurelius waits a beat. "Are you certain that you have?"

She looks down, the answer less than convincing. "Yes."

There's another long silence. And then Dr. Aurelius changes tone.

"I think this is a good place for us to focus today." The sound of shuffling papers briefly fills the room. "It's obvious both of you care deeply for the other, but you're still feeling vulnerable, and I think perhaps more importantly, unheard.”

"That’s . . . you make it sound like--"

Trailing off, I scrub a hand over my face. He might have phrased it neutrally, but the comment still feels like a dig at me. Like I've been ignoring Katniss all this time as opposed to _begging_ her to talk.

Dr. Aurelius waits, but when I don’t finish, continues. “It’s difficult to fully pay attention to what’s being said when you feel unheard. Instead there is the almost overwhelming need to shout your own position over and over as loudly as you can, hoping the other person will finally hear."

There’s a long pause.

“I’ve _been_ listening.” I mumble it in the direction of the window, stopping short of pointing out I couldn’t really be faulted for _not_ doing so when she’d gone entire days without contributing ten words to any conversation.

"The question isn't so much what you have or haven't been doing, but what the other person perceives," he answers gently. "Just like I don't believe the real issue in your case is whether or not Katniss regrets just as much as you do the many instances in which you've hurt one another, rather it's finding a way to effectively communicate that remorse in a manner you can understand and feel comforted by. Right now, that doesn't seem to be happening for either of you."

He waits, and after glancing over at Katniss, who is still fingering the edge of the pillow, I clear my throat.

"Fine. So, how do we start?"

"First by getting down to the root of where these feelings originated. Both of you are working through abandonment, anger, and resentment . . . emotions that aren't particularly new. We've talked in your individual sessions about how similar experiences can form a subconscious link back to painful events from when you were younger, causing friction as they connect to those old feelings of helplessness."

Katniss lets out a quiet cough, but looks down when I turn before our eyes can meet.

"Katniss, would you feel comfortable sharing anything from what we've talked about in our past few sessions?" Dr. Aurelius asks gently.

"Like what?" Her tone is wary.

"I wonder if it might help Peeta to better understand where you’re coming from if you would be willing to share with him points earlier in your life when you might have felt abandoned, or unheard."

She chews her lip for what seems like forever, then reluctantly blows out a breath. "I . . . I don't know."

Dr. Aurelius gives her a minute, but doesn't force a response. "Peeta, can you explain _why_ it's so important to you that Katniss acknowledge your feelings with an apology. What does that connect back to for you?"

Admittedly, there’s a big part of me that doesn’t want to answer, sick of being the one who gives in _every_ single fucking time. But after a moment, I rub my face.

"No one in our house liked to talk about what happened when my mother lost her temper. Neither her nor my father ever admitted any of it was wrong, her for doing it, him for not stopping her, much less apologized for it."

I lift my gaze to Katniss, who is watching me with an expression I can't read. "After a while, it became obvious that maybe it wasn’t that they didn't care about us _at all_ , but that Rye, Bannock and I just didn’t matter . . . enough," I continue in a low voice. "And sometimes . . . a lot of the time . . . it seems like you don't really care that much if you've hurt me either. As far as you’re concerned, I either deal with it, or I don't."

She frowns and looks down, the color draining from her face. I watch her play with a piece of lint on the edge of her sleeve, breathing growing shallower by the second.

"I care," she croaks, the words sounding almost painful to get out. “I . . .”

Nodding, I tuck an arm behind her on the couch once more. "I'm sorry you were left alone." She blinks rapidly, eyes reddening as she tries to look away. Undeterred, I continue softly. "And I'm sorry for everything I said to you that night you came to see me. I still feel awful every time I think about it. You have to know I think you're beautiful."

Fresh tears form and she quickly scrubs at her cheeks.

"This is a tender spot for both of you," Dr. Aurelius says after a pause. "And it's important to _recognize_ that and not hold feelings of anger and resentment caused by events outside your control against each other. Looking forward, as your relationship grows stronger, whatever that may look like, the questions must shift from who is to blame to how can each of you help the other to heal from this, to repair hurts others may have inflicted so that you can move forward to a better, stronger place together."

"Sounds good," I answer a little roughly, wiping my eyes.

"On a closing note, I want to draw your attention to something I asked at the beginning of today's session. Katniss, do you recall your response to my question about how it felt to hear Peeta say he was worried about you?"

She fidgets in place, frowning. "Bad."

"Yes, that's correct. What I want you to consider is that it’s possible to feel more than one emotion at once, and I’m curious whether, mixed in with the bad feelings and the hurt, there was any tiny fraction of you that felt _good,_ too. Maybe even something closer to comfort . . . or relief."

I'm careful not to turn, knowing it will cause her to shut down if I stare over at her profile. But the shift in emotion is still obvious from the way her breath quickens. And after a beat, she clears her throat.

"Relief."

Dr. Aurelius keeps his voice gentle. "If he's worried, he still cares about you."

Katniss won't look at me, even when I reach up to stroke her hair. "Yes."

"And those feelings of rejection and abandonment that have been so painful since the day of the rescue are being, at least temporarily, disproven."

This time the silence is answer enough. I'm glancing at the clock over by the wall, about to say something to end the call when Dr. Aurelius beats me to it.

"Katniss, if it's all right with you, since we started together this morning, I'd like to check in with Peeta for a few minutes here at the end."

I start to protest, not wanting her to disappear again, but the speed with which she leaps off the couch and flies through the doorway like the gong has just gone off instantly deflates me. Slumping against the cushions, I wait until the front door slams.

"Looks like you got your wish.”

He's silent for a minute. "How are you feeling?"

"Peachy." I stare up at the ceiling, anger starting to rise. "So what was it you wanted to tell me?"

"Something that a mentor shared once. That people cry out louder and for longer precisely to the degree they believe they are not being heard."

Exasperated, I rub my eyes. "I _tried_ to talk to her. _So_ many fucking times--"

"I'm sure that you did," he interjects calmly. "What I want you to consider, is that Katniss may not necessarily be able to work out for you, or even for herself, why something is upsetting her. Not with the same ease that you can. Her running away may not literally be about getting away from you, but about going somewhere quiet where she can figure out her feelings without being interrupted."

I don't say anything, still pissed enough to kick something.

"Peeta?" he prods, since apparently Katniss is too delicate to scrutinize, but I'm fair game.

"You think I'm wrong," I mutter, poking absently at the old scar from her teeth again.

"No." Dr. Aurelius pauses. "But I do think that of the two of you, you’ve had more time to reach a stable place in your recovery. I also think understanding Katniss' reaction to a specific event isn't always a reaction to _you_ personally or even a reaction to the hijacking will help you find ways to respond to her that will cushion the hurt she's feeling, rather than exacerbating it."

I digest this in silence.

"Working through issues in a relationship isn’t always about someone being wrong," he adds gently.

"I have to go," I say at last.

He sighs quietly, but there’s no annoyance in it, only something close to sadness. Or maybe resignation. "All right, Peeta. I’ll speak with you again next week."

Foot tapping in agitation, I punch the button on the phone to end the connection, and after spying the tasseled pillow Katniss spent the hour twisting nervously in her hands lying discarded on the floor, get up and stalk out of her house.

 

* * *

 

In the seconds that elapse between my knocking on the door to his office, and it swinging open, I keep myself from making the leap from agitated to insane by drumming on the wall just under the polished brass nameplate that reads _Dr. Aurelius Finch_.

"Peeta.”

He says it calmly, ignores the dark look I give him, and closes the door.

I head straight for our usual chairs by the window, where tea has already been set out. It's an overcast day, thick heavy clouds hanging in a somber sky. Dr. Aurelius goes to his desk to collect his notepad, and annoyance flickers as I rub my palms on my legs, toe tapping as the seconds stretch out.

"Thank you for coming in at a different time,” he begins conversationally, as if he had no idea what cancelling our session on a Saturday when I was due to get information about Katniss would do to me, as if the nurses _hadn’t_ informed him I’d been out in the common area pacing half the night, and had reluctantly stopped only after Chip came out to tell me I walked like a fucking ton of bricks, we’d gotten into an argument, and Hadriana had completely overreacted and come in with the two orderlies on the floor who liked me the least to warn us both to knock it off. “I’m sorry we won’t be able to take the full hour--"

"Just tell me how she is." I cut him off bluntly. "Anything at all. Even if it's bad news."

“I spoke with Sae yesterday.” Dr. Aurelius finishes pouring tea for us both. "She continues to check in on Katniss daily, cook her nutritious meals and ensure that she eats."

The silence that follows feels like a slug to the chest. Heart dropping like it was made of lead, I struggle to draw a breath through the choking sensation. "And . . . and that's it? Has she . . . is she _any_ different from last week? Even a little?"

Our eyes meet, and without him having to say anything, I know the answer. That Katniss hasn't moved, hasn't gotten up to wash her face, comb her hair or change her clothes. That she sits alone in her kitchen and stares into fires Sae builds up for her at breakfast and before she leaves in the evenings, responding only when ordered to pick up a spoon and eat a bowl of stew or finish a glass of water pushed into her hand.

"Have you tried calling Haymitch?" Swallowing, I close my eyes. "Maybe he could go over there, get her to--"

"Yes."

Somehow it’s become nearly impossible to breathe. Tracing a finger lightly over the rosy pink scar from Katniss' teeth as if it could by some miracle cause her to reappear, I force the words. "More than once?"

"Yes." The answer is gentle, an apology.

I scrub a hand through my hair. "There isn't anyone you could send to . . . to . . . _help_ her?"

Dr. Aurelius considers the question for a moment. "You really believe she would respond better to a private nurse from the Capitol, as opposed to Sae?"

I don't even bother with that one, tracing a slow arc over the back of my hand instead. "So someone in Panem’s new administration sees the footage of me losing my marbles and decides I need to be locked up here until I'm no longer _‘a threat to the general public,’_ but, hey, at least I'm getting treatment, unlike Katniss, who they just dump back in Twelve, out of the way where no one has to see her suffering."

"That must feel very unfair." Dr. Aurelius tilts his head. "When so many things in both your lives have already been unfair."

Not answering, I continue to rub the back of my hand.

He waits until I look up at him. "This is difficult to hear. And undoubtedly even more difficult to accept. But one constant I’ve learned after twenty years of practice is that forcing someone into the process of recovery against their will is rarely effective. For true change to take hold, there must be an internalized desire to get better."

Staring past him towards the distorted painting of the Avoxes, the one where they all seem to be huddled together around a single source of light, it finally dawns on me what feels familiar about it, and as soon as it does, I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. The curvature of the lines framing the group that could’ve been the retreating glow of a lantern, but for the fact that there was something too deliberate about the way that they ended. Almost as if they were walls. The curved walls of a tunnel.

And not for the first time, I find myself curious about the artist. The one whose brother had been turned into an Avox--

“Peeta?”

Frowning, I look down. "Where were you yesterday?"

Dr. Aurelius doesn't answer right away, something in his voice changing. "There's going to be a hearing in a few days, one that will not be made public until its conclusion."

I run a finger around the rim of my teacup. "What day?"

"They aren’t sure." He hesitates, and as I wait for him to go on, my stomach starts to churn, somehow understanding whatever is coming is far worse. "Paylor has said that if you want to, you will be allowed to see him."

"See hi--" A sudden need to cough cutting things short, I finish the rest of my tea to stall for time.

“Yes.” Dr. Aurelius stares out at the ominous sky, filling in the silence as my head continues to swirl. “He can be very manipulative. I don't know whether meeting with him would leave you with any sense of closure, or simply more questions."

I consider this for a beat. “You don’t think I could handle it?”

“It isn’t that.” He rubs his beard and studies the paintings that line his walls, seeming to consider how to best put the next part into words. “But you should understand it would be a game to him. That he enjoys getting into people’s minds. Breaking them. And I don’t want you subjected to that unnecessarily.”

Frowning, I set the cup down, playing back what he’d just said. "So you've met with him?" _Him_ , pretty much the only way he’d been referred to over the past two days, at least on my part.

Dr. Aurelius watches me carefully. "Yes."

I lean back in the chair, picking at my hand for a minute. "Where are they keeping him?"

I’m focused on the depiction of the Avoxes when the answer comes.

"At the Training Center."

My jaw starts to hurt, and when I finally look up at the sound of my name, it’s pretty clear from Dr. Aurelius’ expression that it isn't the first time he's said it.

“Tell me what that brings up,” he says gently, and I exhale an angry breath that seems to have no origin, fighting the urge to take his perfect white tea set, hurl it into the wall and watch it shatter into thousands of tiny shards.

Not bothering to answer, I slump in the chair. “In one of the rooms like Katniss and I used to stay in?”

“Yes.”

I rub my thumb over the scar from her teeth until the skin around it blossoms a fresh, angry pink. “Is he . . . are they . . . “ Trailing off, I lick my lips. "Do you know what they're feeding him?"

Dr. Aurelius inclines his head. "Would you like me to make a call and see if I can find out?"

Shrugging, I stare off into space. "Pretty sure it’s better than--"

There’s a pregnant pause, and then Dr. Aurelius raises an eyebrow. "Better than--?"

I swallow, some part of me still resisting the idea of saying it out loud even though that was stupid. He’d probably known what I was going to say before _I’d_ figured it out, and holding it in was only pissing off the furious, indignant voice ready to get it the fuck out of my head.

"What I got."

"Yes."

He says it gravely, and it's not exactly hard to guess from his tone that he's remembering the journal entries we went over just a few days prior. Specifically, the one that detailed what was typically done to the meager serving of hot grain before the tray came under the slit in the door.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

I run a finger along the soft crease in the armchair’s plump cushion. "The other day, when I asked if you knew him, you said, _'not personally.'”_ I wait, and when he offers nothing, go on. “It made it sound like there were things you knew _about_ him."

Dr. Aurelius stares out the window for a moment.

"For the past twenty years, virtually all medical testing, all new procedures being performed solely to ascertain surgical success rates or perfect new techniques, and all drug trials have been carried out using Avoxes."

I nod. On the one hand, it sounds awful, but knowing the Capitol, it’s not exactly a shock. After meeting my gaze, Dr. Aurelius continues.

"Human subjects have been necessary for certain phases of medical testing for centuries, since long before Panem was formed, but with the Avoxes there was blithe disregard for regulation, and after the first year or so, no monitoring. To call it _unethical_ doesn't even begin to describe what was done to so many men and women against their will, and by those who had sworn oaths to do no harm." Dr. Aurelius looks down. "Dr. Gai directed research at one of the institutes here in the Capitol, specializing in the area of biological testing and development. For years, word had been leaking that the research being performed there using human subjects bordered on experimentation."

Frowning, I reach for the rice sack on the table next to my tea. "So that's why he was--"

I stop short, searching for the right word. Not _removed_. No, in a system where the cutting of tongues was officially sanctioned, where children were sent to fight to the death for entertainment and starving twelve-year-old girls signed up for rations of grain in exchange for more reaping slips, experimentation on Avoxes, who most people in the Capitol viewed as lower than stray dogs, would hardly be grounds for _removal_. Silent promotion, more likely.

"What happened then?" I ask quietly.

Dr. Aurelius taps the end of his pen against his notepad. "A few weeks after the 74th Games concluded, he seemed to disappear overnight, at least from the public eye."

"And you think he would have been _capable_ of doing it, executing the hijacking and, you know, monitoring the precise dosing with the drugs?" I ask, tossing the bag of rice from hand to hand without looking at him. "You said once it required a certain set of skills, that it wasn't something just anyone could have pulled off."

"Yes." The answer comes without hesitation.

"But they can't really be _sure_ sure," I continue, brow furrowing. "That it was him. If I can't remember him, and if none of the others can either, then they're just guessing."

Dr. Aurelius doesn’t respond right away. "That will be up to the panel at the hearing to determine, based on testimony and evidence."

"The news report said all the others suspected of being involved were dead or unaccounted for." I wait a beat, each breath getting harder to draw with the weight bearing down on my chest. "So who does that leave who can testify?"

He nods silently. “I know you want answers, but this isn't something I can discuss with you in any further detail than I've already given. At least, not at the present time."

I let the statement turn over in my head, annoyance only partially waning.

Dr. Aurelius clicks his pen closed and gestures to the notebook beside me. "We have a few minutes. Are there any journal entries you'd like to discuss?"

Shrugging, I leaf through the pages of densely filled text, line after line spelling out weeks having been spent writing myself in circles until my hand felt permanently cramped, asking Dr. Aurelius about Katniss, worrying about Katniss, dreaming about Katniss, picturing Katniss Everdeen every second of every day whether I was having my head picked apart in sessions, working out on the machines in physical therapy, or stroking my cock in the shower afterward. What she and Haymitch were doing back in Twelve, whether she was slowly growing thinner despite Sae's best efforts to make her eat, and selfishly, whether during those long, cold days spent losing herself in the flickering glow of firelight, her thoughts ever strayed back to _us_. Tucked into a sleeping bag in the cave. Licking clean plates of lamb stew and rice and laughing at what Effie Trinket would say. Awkwardly trading whispers and first kisses as the rain poured outside.

But now with reports of the capture and arrest flooding the airwaves, even if she and Haymitch hadn’t bothered to switch on their televisions, there would have been phone calls. Knocks on the door. And much as part of me wanted to excuse their continued absence to apathy or grief, it smarted with something far more familiar. Indifference. And shame. That once again I’d willingly allowed myself to be sucked in, spent weeks rambling on for paragraphs and paragraphs about the way her hair smelled and the hard, flinty gray of her eyes when she was mad, all of it just seeming especially pathetic now, to devote all my energy to worrying about Katniss Everdeen and Haymitch Abernathy when it was pretty clear neither of them had bothered to think about me.

"I just wrote a little yesterday," I mumble, skipping past the page and a half of barely legible notes about trying to find Katniss at the lightning tree and clearing my throat. _"It's so cold down here. A damp, drafty cold that seeps in through the crack under the cell door and chills you to the bone, like the Capitol wants to remind you there are some things you can never get warm from, there are some screams you have no hope of blocking out, and some doors through which there is no hope of escape."_

Dr. Aurelius is watching me intently when I pause to flip the page, something flickering in his expression as I clear my throat and continue.

_"After the guards leave, I curl up on whichever side hurts the least and wait for the bleeding to stop, for the taste of vomit to fade from my mouth, try to make myself as small as I can to conserve warmth. I never sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. They blast sirens every twenty minutes. Come around to knock the butt of a gun against the doors. That’s the worst. It jerks me up off the floor so fast it’s like getting kicked in the stomach.”_

I blink, rubbing my eyes.

 _"I’m used as a punching bag at least twice a day. Fed once, if I’m lucky._ _An Avox comes to empty the bucket in the corner of the cell, usually right after the guards have finished. It’s too dark for me to see his face, but in the shadows I can just make out the hook that extends from his left elbow. Guess we’re not that different. At first I used to flinch when he would come in, sure the guards were back for a second round, but then he started dragging his foot a little right as he came up to the door so I would know. That it was just him, not someone there to hurt me--"_

Stopping short, I stare down at the page, what I'd just read replaying somewhere in the back of my mind, and with it, the faces of the dozens of Avoxes who performed the menial tasks every day here at the hospital. Preparing and delivering meals, washing dishes and linens, scrubbing out bedpans, cleaning rooms, transporting patients who either couldn't move on their own or couldn't be trusted unsupervised out in the corridors . . . the list went on and on and on.

And surely it would have been no different there . . . Avoxes to clean up the mess left behind once the guards finished unhooking the machines and dragged a limp body out. Avoxes to mop out the cells when the smell of blood, vomit and excrement became so strong even the Peacekeepers couldn’t stand it. Avoxes who would have no reason to lie for a system that had stripped them of all rights and oppressed them for decades, Avoxes, who unlike the guards and technicians who could never really have been trusted, or worse, those at the very highest ranks who had planned it all out, might have been lowly enough to escape notice. To disappear into the shadows like the vermin they were seen as when the final sanitation of evidence was performed. Avoxes, who so many walked past every day and never saw.

And with that understanding comes a sudden rush of shame. That in some ways, perhaps many ways, I was no different, having never even paused to question what had happened to any of them the night Johanna, Annie, and I had been rescued, whether they’d gotten out, whether the team sent to extract us from the prison had walked right past men and women as powerless as Darius or Lavinia, as in need of saving as the three of us were, the idea that in some small way I, too, was just as callous, turning a living, breathing person into a nameless, faceless shadow by virtue of the crime that had been perpetrated against them by the Capitol, sickening.

I jerk my head up, realizing Dr. Aurelius had asked me something. "What?"

He regards me carefully. "What's going through your head?"

Folding and unfolding a crease in the page, I lick my lips. "I, uh . . . realized I don't know what happened to him . . . if he got out or not."

"The Avox who used to come to your cell." It isn’t a question.

I nod anyway, and after fiddling with the edge of the journal, shrug. “We were both trapped, you know? In a way. But until now, I never stopped to question what they did to him once they discovered the three of us gone. Never tried to help him. Never thanked him.”

Dr. Aurelius gives me a minute. "What would you want to say to him, if you could?"

His voice is gentle. I swallow, eyes beginning to smart, grateful that for as much time as I spend annoyed at him, when it counts, he knows what it is that I want him to ask.

"Just . . . I guess, thank you? He, uh,” I clear my throat, “what he did with his foot . . . there was maybe nothing else he could have done for me right then but that little kindness."

"Sometimes that's all there is." Dr. Aurelius waits while I grab a tissue from the box to my right and dry my face. Once I’ve balled it up and have gone back to thumbing the pages of the journal, he tilts his head. “Why don’t you read me some more.”

 

* * *

 

"Huh."

 _"That's_ all you have to say?" I retort dryly.

Haymitch mops the back of his neck with a handkerchief and lets out a grunt. "Don't take this the wrong way, boy, but maybe that doc of yours had a point. Between you and the girl, you really don't think you're doing any better than she is?"

"No, I--" The path back to the Victor’s Village feels quieter than usual, probably because Haymitch stayed late to talk to Thom. "I meant about the other stuff."

Haymitch just gives me a look and pulls out a flask.

Cursing, I lower my head. "I . . . I know I am. It's just, some of the things she said just pissed me off. That _I_ abandoned _her_."

He takes a long pull and replaces the stopper, grimacing as he rotates his shoulder. "Think everyone in Panem with a television set and half a brain knows you didn't, and that includes Sweetheart. Only question is how long the two of you want to keep spinning this thing in circles before you settle down and decide to fix it."

I stare off at the horizon, the sun fading ever lower in a buttery yellow sky. "She's not sorry. She's _never_ sorry."

"Not so sure about that." When I frown, Haymitch just shrugs. "Might be damn near hopeless for apologies, but you know as well as I do, not saying you're sorry isn't the same as not _being_ sorry. Not by a long shot."

I kick a stray rock in our path.

"The girl's got a mother who checks out any time she really needs her. Haven't seen Hawthorne around lately.” Haymitch makes a face. “You get taken. She’s drugged out of her mind and damn near hysterical with post-Games paranoia, and where was I? Spent weeks drying out while she ate herself alive. Didn’t do enough to help either of you once the war was in full swing. And fucked things up all over again once we got back home."

We walk along in silence, neither offering comment, the memory of me announcing I was back from the Capitol by thundering up the steps to his house and pounding down his door after seeing an emaciated, filthy Katniss with matted hair and claws long enough to rival Buttercup's come running around the side of her house undoubtedly fresh in both our minds. Along with the conclusion to the visit when I’d punched him in the jaw.

"How can she doubt how I feel about her?" I ask softly, when we're just in sight of the Victor's Village. "I mean, I get it back then. But now, after everything? She has to know I still love her."

Haymitch winces again and cracks his neck, and I frown, noticing for the first time that he’s walking with a limp. And as I turn back, trying not to stare, all I can do is silently question how many little injuries I’d been overlooking for the past few weeks . . . a pulled back, swollen knees . . . the work of rebuilding Twelve hard enough at my age, and undoubtedly infinitely harder at his.

"You know, that night you had the flashback, I'd made up my mind to start emptying that bottle and not stop for anything until I passed out just to keep from having to choose between the two of you again,” Haymitch starts after a minute. “You were pissed enough to light an oven with your eyes and Sweetheart pretty much went to pieces the moment you slammed the door." He waits. "You want to know what the girl said?"

Heart sinking, I reluctantly nod.

“Pretty much the same thing she told me the night they announced the Quarter Quell. _'It's Peeta’s turn to be saved. He deserves that.'"_ Haymitch levels me with a look just as we reach the gates. "But you and I both know what she really meant, right?"

 _And I don't_.

"I wish more than anything I could take it back," I say quietly. "What happened the day of the rescue, those times she saw me with Delly, or after the wedding, or in the cafeteria . . . just, hurting her."

Haymitch grunts. "Wish you could've seen the damn fool grin on her face when Boggs told us you were waiting at the end of the hall. Bolted so fast she nearly knocked over one of the--"

But I'm no longer listening, haven't been since we rounded the corner and the hunched figure on my front porch came into view. Head down, she's fiddling in the dirt with a stick. And clearly waiting for us to get back.

"Well, what do you know?" Haymitch lets out a low whistle. "You were right. Not sorry at all."

"Shut up," I mumble, and run a hand through my sweaty hair, knowing she’d seen me look far, far worse but still wishing there was time to covertly check my armpits and see how bad the damage was without her noticing. _Fuck_.

He just chuckles. "See you in the morning, boy."

Katniss continues studying her toes, refusing to look up even though I would’ve bet my last coin she hears me.

Taking a risk with the smell, I sink onto the porch steps beside her. "Hey, you."

She picks at a stubborn piece of bark until it pries free, then flicks it off into the grass. "Hey."

The early evening breeze draws the edge of her sleeve to flutter against my arm, and in the space of our silence, it carries over the sound of children playing on one of the porches a few houses down.

“I was thinking." Snapping the stick in half, Katniss dangles the longer section between finger and thumb and watches it slowly sway. "About what you said. Earlier."

Propping an arm behind her on the step, I wait a few seconds before cautiously stroking her back. She frowns, and I'm about to pull away when without warning, she exhales in a rush.

"I've been mad at you." She closes her eyes. "For . . . I think maybe ever since I woke up on the hovercraft. And you weren't there."

Both of us follow the point of her stick as it traces patterns in the dirt. Katniss chews her lip.

"I wanted you back, like you were before. I," she swallows, looking away long enough to swipe a wrist across her cheeks, " _needed_ you. And I hated that. Hated you for it. And every time I saw you, that part of me got angrier." She shrugs, voice hoarse. "I didn't know what to call it, or why it kept coming back. Until I started talking to Dr. Aurelius, I didn't really believe there was a way to get rid of it."

Her shoulders stiffen when I draw my hand gently up the side of her arm. "Kat--"

"Just . . . just let me get this out. I spent all day trying to--" Heaving out a breath, she tucks her hair behind one ear. "I'm sorry for what I said at the camp. And for rubbing it in your face about Gale." She hesitates, eyes shimmering a watery silver in the tender caress of the fading summer sun. "I'll never forgive myself for pulling away when you were all alone and confused, for abandoning you when you needed me most."

I stare at her profile. And for maybe the first time since they ripped us apart in that arena, what forms on my lips is what I'm absolutely _convinced_ the old Peeta Mellark would have said. And for once, I don't fucking care. Because maybe he's finally starting to feel a little bit like _me_.

"I want you to," I tell her softly, delicately smoothing back a dark strand of her hair.

Katniss stifles a sob, covering her mouth as tears stream silently down her cheeks. She doesn't fight me when I pull her close, burying her face in my neck and trembling against my chest.

Stroking her hair for a minute, I press my lips lightly to her temple. "I'm sorry I wasn't there on the hovercraft when you woke up." Katniss shudders, another sob bubbling up. "And I'm sorry you were scared."

She blinks when I brush the tears from her cheeks with the pads of my thumbs, her long, dark lashes flecked with tiny droplets as she stares up at me. Skimming her cheekbones once more, I bend to kiss the tip of her nose.

"I'm sorry I ever let you go off alone," I whisper roughly, eyes pricking with tears even as I beg them not to. "At the lightning tree. I'm sorry I couldn't keep you safe."

"I never should have let them split us up," Katniss says in a low voice, breath warming my neck as I press a kiss to her forehead. "It was all my fault."

Sighing, I take her face in both hands. " _No_. No more of that." She bites her lip as I smooth her hair. "Everything will be okay. _We're_ going to be okay." Waiting until her eyes flick hesitantly to mine, I graze her cheeks again. "You're _everything_ to me." Fresh tears streak in twin trails past my thumbs, and she tries to look down, but I brush them away and tip her chin back up, continuing softly, "Strong . . . brave . . . stubborn and beautiful." I pause, waiting until she lifts her gaze from my collarbone. "And I love you."

Katniss goes very still, like she’s no longer breathing, but I keep going, determined to get the words out even if they caused her to bolt. "I think maybe I stopped telling you how I really felt even after things started getting better between us because I didn't want to give you any more power to hurt me. But if you think for one second I _ever_ stopped wanting you--"

Without warning, she leans in, eyelashes tickling my cheek as her lips stop mine with a kiss that tastes like the last warm days of a long, lazy summer spent inching our way back towards each other one shared piece of chocolate pie and walk after supper at a time. Like the tartness of fresh strawberries and lavender blossoms brushed over skin I wake up every morning wanting to explore with achingly slow kisses while watching her squirm and blush. Like hair that no matter what flavor of soap she uses, somehow always smells as if she’s come straight from the woods, to the point that I once checked her shampoo bottle for pine needles, convinced I couldn’t just be imagining it.

Like _her._

I’m in the middle of working my way around her mouth, devoting attention to every freckle and soft bend in her lips, when her hand brushes my knee and I jump about a mile, completely ruining the moment and causing her to pull away.

Her cheeks instantly flush. “Sorry . . . I, um--”

“S’okay,” I interrupt with a laugh, capturing her hand and kissing each of her knuckles in turn.

Katniss tucks her hair behind one ear, watching me, eyes still the tiniest bit uncertain. I give her a playful tug back into my arms, tickling her once she’s there. The yelp of surprise comes half a second before she smacks me on the arm, scowling, but when I kiss the tip of her nose, she’s unable to entirely hide her smile.

This time when our lips meet, I feel a shiver start at the back of my neck, soft tendrils spanning the width of my shoulders from where Katniss’ hands have taken up position, tickling downwards in a fluttering caress. She makes a quiet sound under her breath, fingers knotting in the fabric of my shirt, and in response I gently stroke, then let my hand come to rest at the nape of her neck. Our heads tilt in unison, her mouth opening to accept my tongue.

Time freezes in place as I lose myself to sensation. The soft seal of our lips, tongues granted a measure of privacy as they first begin to explore and then gradually to rub. The blissful intimacy of sharing warmth and wetness between two open mouths. The little puffs of her breath wafting on my cheek, everything about her so deliciously close I’m about to burst from my skin. It feels like the way we kissed before, back on the beach in the Quarter Quell, the sunset that fell that night marred by a sense of impending doom, this one holding nothing but promise.

“Peeta,” Katniss exhales when I pull away, starting to follow until I duck my head to kiss along the underside of her jaw.

“Hmm?”

“Oh . . .”

Smiling against her throat, I gently twirl a lock of her hair. “Sorry, I missed that.”

She groans in response, the sound trailing off as my lips find a particularly sensitive spot just behind her ear. I take my time mapping the contours of her throat. Katniss squirms, but doesn’t move away, breath quickening as I cradle her head with infinite tenderness.

 _“Katniss,”_ I whisper against the point of her chin, all that exists, all that has ever existed for me, her.

Our eyes meet briefly, hers dark and turbulent as the storms that roll over the mountain ranges that surround Twelve. Her lips find mine, and this time my tongue isn’t the first to cross the space between our open mouths.

I’m not sure how much time has passed when we finally separate, just that the soft orange glow has faded from the sky and lights are beginning to wink on in windows all around the green. And that framed by flushed cheeks and the dimple that forms when she smiles and bites her lip, Katniss Everdeen is more breathtaking than any sunset.

Clearing my throat, I tuck another strand of hair behind her ear and softly trace her face. “I need to take a shower. Do you want to have dinner after that?”

She nods, leaning forward for one last kiss, and as our lips meet, I shift in place, silently willing her to stand up and leave first before she gets a look at my trousers and catches me sticking out like a newly set fencepost.

“Come over when you’re through.” Rising, Katniss brushes off her pants.

I watch her turn, smiling at the way her hair falls over her shoulders now when she walks, at the slight hesitation before she tucks her hands in her pockets, as if she’s still not quite used to being without her game bag, or a bow.

“Yeah.”

* * *

 

Part 1 of 3 . . .

Comments are like goat cheese and apple tarts in a cave in the rain, made by our favorite blond baker! Would love to hear what you thought :)

 


	9. Pure

_“My wish was to save Katniss.”_

 

* * *

 

It glints like a lone strand of cobweb in the moonlight, feinting around trees and snaking through gaps in the vines with the effortless grace of a dancer, a thin golden thread luring its prey towards leering monkey mutts, swarms of murderous insects and other unseen horrors concealed in the dense canopy of vegetation, drawing us like moths to a spitting hot bulb and then cackling in delight as one by one, we snuff ourselves out. 

Undeterred, I stagger deeper into the jungle, following the twisting path of loops and coils that had been my last connection to Katniss, each subtle vibration of the wire humming at the thickest part of the lightning tree's muttated trunk confirmation that somewhere out in the night, she was still alive.

A smile flits through my memory, her head pillowed in my lap, lip quirking as I fiddle with her hair.

_I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever._

A branch snaps somewhere close by, barely audible above the buzz of thousands of swarming insects, and immediately the hair at the back of my neck stands on end.

"Katniss," I whisper in desperation, turning one last time to look even as I instinctively break into a run.

But part of me already knows she isn't there, that she hasn't been all along, that the shadowy form concealed in the trees is the same one from before, the one that's been tracking me for some time now, and the one that surges to follow as I take off blindly into the night.

How many different ways did Gale fucking Hawthorne try to warn me I would only get myself killed faster crashing like a runaway boulder down a mountainside through the woods? That stealth isn’t only about staying hidden, but being aware of your surroundings.

Over the roar of blood in my ears, there is nothing but the pounding of my own two feet and the insidious clack of tiny mandibles making my skin crawl. But with the burn in my thighs and disadvantage of a prosthesis, it’s not hard to imagine my unknown pursuer gradually gaining ground.

I risk a furtive look back, even as a voice in my head shouts at the mistake, the fear, the _anguish_ thick in each word leading me, for that fleeting moment, to doubt what I had said the night before.

I never see the vines, only feel myself pitching forward with nauseating speed before slamming face-first into the sand.

_Okay. I'll allow it._

"Katniss," I choke out, trying to wipe the grime from my eyes and mouth. It’s a coarse mixture of silt and sediment, so unlike the fine white grains of sand from the beach. 

I try to get up and fall at least a dozen times before admitting it's no use. My legs are quaking so violently there's no telling how far I've really run. Blood streams down my forehead from a wound I don't remember receiving. Footsteps are close now, like they’re coming from all directions. And as I lie there, helplessly tangled in the underbrush and waiting to die, I realize three things to be true.

That despite purity of intention, irrespective of any measure of mettle, and no matter the strength of one's convictions, at some point muscles simply give out. That on nights like this one, as the last streaks of color drip from an angry, bloody sky, darkness descends like a wraith to blur the lines of fighting for survival and what it means to forfeit one's soul. And in that moment of decision, all men are forced to learn if there is a price at which they can be bought.

 

* * *

 

"Tell me how you're doing this morning."

Settling into his chair, Dr. Aurelius crosses his legs at the knee and flips to a fresh page in his notepad.

I pick at the layer of bandages covering my hands, some there out of necessity, but most of them just to stop me from messing with the scars and putting myself at risk of an infection. After two bad wound checks in a row, I'd gotten a long lecture from one of the doctors down in the burn unit and new orders for me to come back every other day instead of once a week.

Which was just fucking great.

"Peeta?"

I sigh and turn towards the window. No matter how neutrally he phrases it, _tell me how you're doing_ always winds up feeling like a trap. It also makes three attempts to get me talking I've ignored so far, if you count his first one offering me tea. I pick up the weighted balls from their box on the side table, absently rolling them from hand to hand.

Dr. Aurelius adjusts his glasses. “Let me know if you feel like talking today.”

Twirling the balls a few more times, I drop them back in their box. "I couldn't sleep again last night."

"Not at all?"

Sinking back into the chair's soft cushions, I rub my eyes. "I don't know. An hour all together. Maybe two."

He nods. "Any nightmares?"

I make a face, unable to work up the energy to say something snide. It feels like we go through the same basic checklist every fucking session. And my responses rarely change.

"Some from the prison. Others from the Quarter Quell."

Dr. Aurelius makes a note. "What happens in the dreams?"

"The usual fun stuff,” I mumble, fighting the sudden urge to pick at my hand.

“Peeta,” he murmurs and pinches the bridge of his nose, the closest he ever comes to impatience. The dark circles under his eyes seem more prominent than ever as he exhales and straightens in the chair. “Tell me what happened.”

“It was nothing," I mumble again.

He merely gives me a look.

Annoyed, I stare out the window. But we've arrived at one of his favorite topics and convincing him to move on when he knows I'm avoiding something is like trying to get a dog to drop a half-chewed bone.

"It's nothing you haven't heard before. I'm in the jungle, searching for Katniss, and there's someone following me. When I try to get away, I trip and fall. The last thing I remember is waking up just before they get there."

 _"They."_ He lets the word hang in the air while he finishes writing, quiet and ominous as the first rumble of an approaching storm. "Do you get a look at their face? Or otherwise have any sense from the context that it's someone you know?"

"No . . . I . . . no." Clearing my throat, I reach for the pitcher of water on the stand next to the wall.

Dr. Aurelius waits while I gulp down the entire glass, eyes seeming to zero in on the way my fingers are tapping against the rim. "This person never says anything?"

"No.”

"Never actually _gets_ to you at all," he presses.

I shake my head.

“But in the dream you feel certain he or she is someone who intends you harm?”

“That’s how it felt.” I fiddle with the water glass, finally setting it down. “At least in the dream.”

I catch the slip even before his eyes flick to mine. But to his credit, Dr. Aurelius merely makes a note.

“You said you had another one from the prison?"

“It was--”

Cutting off short, I consider his selection of objects to fiddle with and pick up the rice sack. "I don’t know. The usual. I'm being tortured."

"How?"

I spill the grains slowly from hand to hand and squint out at the bright Capitol morning. "They were . . . cutting me up. Fingers and arms and toes. Like Darius."

“Cutting _you_ up.”

“Yes.”

“Actively, in the moment.”

I start to answer and reconsider. “Um . . . no.” The room falls silent as I pull at a string on the edge of one of the bandages. “No, they--“

Dr. Aurelius studies me carefully. I heave out a breath, the words suddenly tasting like bile.  

"I was in the chair. They took off the hood, and my hands and feet were . . . gone. All that was left were just these . . . bloody stumps."

Swallowing, I scrub a hand over my face. Dr. Aurelius simply waits.

"There was a bloody knife on a tray. A bucket on the floor where I could see part of my hand sticking out. You know how you can always tell what your own hand looks like? And blood, just so much blood everywhere. I, uh, tried to scream but I couldn't . . . I couldn’t make any sound at all, actually.” My voice cracks, and I frown out in the direction of the Training Center. “One of the guards started laughing. Said I was only half a man now and wouldn't be a man at all much longer. He picked up the knife, jabbed it towards me.” I pause. “Just before he could make the first cut, I woke up."

Heat creeps up my neck and I’m embarrassed by how quiet the room suddenly seems. When I glance over, Dr. Aurelius is still writing.

“It’s stupid. Nothing even happened.”

Dr. Aurelius sets the clipboard aside. “The imminent threat of violence occurring when you recognize you’re powerless to get away can be just as traumatizing as violence itself.”

Our eyes meet, but I don’t respond. He peers over his notes.

 _"'Wouldn't be a man at all much longer.'"_ He waits. "What do you suppose he meant by that?"

I pick at the bandage again. I wanted to claim I had no idea, but it was a flimsy argument, and we both knew it. Real or not real, spawned by my hijacked mind or twisted from some version of past events, everything last night had happened entirely inside my head.

"That he was going to," I mumble, looking away, but gesturing towards my crotch, "cut me up . . . so that even if by some miracle I managed to survive, I would never be able to really _be_ with Katniss."

“Sexually,” Dr. Aurelius clarifies.

I rub my thumb over the raised arc of tiny scars from her teeth, feeling the back of my neck crawl with a hot, itchy heat. “Yeah.”

There’s a long pause. “In other ways, too?”

Still messing with the bandage, I shrug again. And then nod.

"Is your perception of things, Peeta," he asks gently, "that Katniss would no longer want you if you weren't whole?"

I open my mouth to reply, but immediately shut it, torn between conflicting memories. Of seeing Katniss bound for the woods with Gale following the 74th Games, of the cold face of her indifference in the months we lived side by side. Still others of the two of us kissing on a moonlit beach, of her lips pressed to mine in a dark tunnel beneath the Capitol long after I'd lost my leg. Of all the times she could have left me behind, should have left me behind, and had clung to me like I was something precious, something she couldn’t survive without. And then her feral screams for Gale the day they dragged us apart--

"I don't know," I finally answer. "Part of me _wants_ to believe it wouldn’t matter, but--"

Another minute passes. And then Dr. Aurelius leans forward.

"But viewing yourself as _wanted_ hasn't ever been a particularly easy thing for you. Not from the time you were very small."

His voice is gentle. I mess with the hem of my hospital-issue shirt for a few seconds.

"No."

He nods. "We've talked at length about how dreams aren't simply an opportunity to, for example, view taped footage of events long past, but represent a reflection of what dwells in the subconscious mind in the present. And both of yours from last night seem to draw upon the same two fears--helplessness and loss of control--despite occurring in separate timelines." There's a pause, and then he inclines his head. "You recall we've talked about how those emotions are particularly important to be aware of in your case."

There’s the temptation not to respond. To sit here and be an ass just because I got practically no sleep and my head feels like a fucking hovercraft landed on it. But the answer is there, waiting on the tip of my tongue.

"Helplessness and loss of control are the primary things that make torture so damaging in the long term."

"Yes." He waits. “And we should try to determine what could be drawing them up to the surface now.”

I pick at the loose string on my shirt again. We all get to wear the same hospital-issued tunic and pants every day, which makes you wonder if some of the patients need help transitioning back into wearing colors other than sickeningly sweet Capitol blue. I let my head fall back, not exactly missing his point. "What . . . you think I can't sleep, am having all these nightmares because of everything going on with--?"

Dr. Aurelius merely raises an eyebrow. "Going on with--?"

I make a face. "The trial. And whether or not I want to testify. Or go . . . see him."

The hearing had been pushed back to the following week. Unlike Katniss' trial, it wouldn't be televised, but there would still be the same panel of ranking military officials chosen to hear testimony. We'd assumed that with my memory problems and current status receiving inpatient treatment at a psychiatric facility, I would be excused from testifying. But two days ago, someone from Paylor's office had called Dr. Aurelius and asked if he believed I was up to any form of light questioning. He'd asked for time to evaluate my readiness and they'd given him until the end of the week.

"Is that what it feels like to you?"

Shrugging, I run a finger along the arm of the chair. "I was having nightmares about the Quarter Quell before they found him."

"Certainly. Although I might argue those seemed to be centered more around the singular fear of losing Katniss." He flips back a page and scans his notes. "When I asked last week, you insisted no one else was there with you in the dream at all."

Slouching in the chair, I rub my eyes, too exhausted to keep it all straight. "You’re saying you think I should do it . . . testify at the hearing."

“Is that what you want to do?”

“For fuck’s sake,” I snap. “Can we just have a normal fucking conversation?”

Dr. Aurelius regards me thoughtfully through steepled fingers. "Peeta, I don't want to influence you other than to say that it's clear that by continuing to avoid making any decision at all regarding Dr. Gai, you are causing yourself a great deal of anxiety from which I would hope to see you spared."

I take a breath, staring at an ugly, leafy plant he’d recently put out on a stand in the far corner of the room. “What do you think I should do? No bullshit, this time.”

“I won’t endorse any particular course of action. This is an important part of the healing process. That it be _your_ decision. That you find your voice again, the one you felt was lost in the nightmare as the guard advanced, whatever that course of action looks like. But whatever you choose, it will be most beneficial if it comes from a position of strength, after having thoroughly thought through and weighed the emotional ramifications, openly. Not by putting off the decision on whether or not to testify against Dr. Gai, stalling until the clock has run out and it's too late to see him in prison, if that’s what you ultimately want, or even by something as small as refusing to say his name.”

I digest this in silence. Then pick at my hand. “I don’t even know how to . . . _begin_ to figure out what I want to do.”

Dr. Aurelius runs a hand over his beard. “Are we talking about the trial or Paylor’s offer to let you see him?”

Eyes fixed on a spot on the rug, I mull over the next question. "If I agreed to testify, would . . . what would it be like? Would he . . . would _Dr. Gai_ be there?"

"That's an area where we’d probably have quite a bit of leeway given your condition. Certainly we would stipulate that you be interviewed in a separate room so you don't have to see him."

"You're sure?"

"Yes." He tilts his head. "I’ll tell Paylor it’s a condition of your testimony, should you ultimately choose to go through with it. What else?"

I fidget for a minute. "Would they be able to ask me _anything?_ Even . . . about things the guards--?"

When I don't finish, Dr. Aurelius leans forward. "I can request that if there is a question you don't feel comfortable with, it be saved so that I can address it separately during my testimony. Would that be an acceptable compromise?"

"I guess." I take a breath. “I might have an episode, you know, when they’re questioning me.”

“Yes.”

I exhale hard. “Can I think about it some more?”

“Of course.” A beat passes. “What else has been on your mind?”

My finger twitches against the armrest. "Did you, uh, see the story they aired last night at the end of the report on rebuilding Panem, the interview Cressida did with her cameraman, Pollux?"

"I did." He studies me, expression giving nothing away. "What did you think?"

"He--" Frowning, I look down. "What he said about the term _Avoxes_ , like even by doing something as simple as calling them that we're trying to lie to ourselves and pretend they're no longer human, that they're _less_ than human and we’ve been silently going along with something reprehensible . . .”

"Yes." Dr. Aurelius peers across his office, gaze drifting over the dark paintings depicting screaming figures tucked between the bookcases. "It's a point of contention, it seems, among them. Many of the Avox groups who've begun to band together strongly oppose the term. Still others embrace it, those who don't necessarily wish to reunite with a Capitol society that for decades has held them as slaves, and who fairly point out that of the long list of changes that need to be put into place, something as inconsequential as a _name_ shouldn't take priority when most of them still have no access to decent shelter, food, or health care."

I don't answer right away, mulling over what he said as I pick up the rice sack again to toss it back and forth. "You think the people here in the Capitol would be open to a new way of thinking, no matter what they were called? You think they could really go from seeing the Avoxes as mindless servants, or worse, criminals who deserved what they got, to victims of a horrible crime _they_ themselves participated in perpetuating?"

"It would be extraordinarily difficult and progress wouldn't be made overnight," he admits, slowly nodding. "But yes, I like to believe opinions would eventually change."

Frowning again, I let the rice sack fall limp, allowing the grains to spill back and forth over my fingers.

"Do you . . . do you still do any work with them? The Avoxes."

Dr. Aurelius regards me silently for a moment.

"Yes."

"Do you--" I lick my lips and pretend to examine the pattern of the tiles. "Is there . . . would there be any way of finding someone? One of them, I mean."

"Possibly." There's another long silence, one that tells me he already knows what I am about to ask. "Who?"

My neck grows warm, and as I mumble the rest of it, I can't quite meet his gaze. "I just . . . wanted to know if he got out or not . . . the Avox from the prison, the one who used to come to my cell." When he doesn’t say anything, I mess with the rice sack some more. “I know it may not be possible. I just--”

I shrug, feeling like a speck of dirt under a microscope as Dr. Aurelius continues to observe me thoughtfully.

"Tell me why," he finally says.

I exhale, digging around inside my head in an effort to figure out why this suddenly mattered _now_ , had come out of nowhere over the past few days to linger in the quiet moments I failed to keep busy enough, and eat away at me like some sort of wasting disease when it hadn't been there before.

"I feel . . . bad, I guess." It comes out more like a question than an answer, but I keep going anyway, at a loss for what else to say. "People came looking for me. Took me out of . . . a place more horrifying than anything I'd ever imagined. And it was . . . by the time they got there, long enough had passed that the interrogators had pretty much convinced me I'd been forgotten. That no one had cared that much in the first place. Despite everything I want to believe about humanity, I doubt people were trying to find him, were trying to find _any_ of them. And it just doesn't seem fair--"

My voice cracks, and I go back to tossing the rice sack.

 _"Bad."_ Dr. Aurelius waits a beat. _"Unfair._ Those are decisive terms."

Looking down, I watch the grains spill from hand to hand and ignore his remark.

 _"Unfair_ that resources were used and people sent out to rescue you, Annie and Johanna, while presumably leaving others behind."

“Yes.”

 _“Bad_ that the team from Thirteen was unable to rescue them, too."

I nod.

 _"Bad_ that you were saved when others weren't.”

This time, I only shrug, suddenly wary of where he was going with this.

 _“Unfair_ that you had people who cared about you and someone else didn’t.” Dr. Aurelius watches me carefully, and I'm not surprised by the next question when it comes. "Does any of this sound familiar?"

Swallowing, I focus on a small scuff on the tile. "I don't . . . I know. Not . . . I know what you're getting at, but this isn't . . . it’s not--"

" _What_ isn't it?" he prods when I fail to go on, face impassive.

I tap my foot, suddenly agitated.

"You know." Shaking my head, I stare out at the Capitol streets. "Like with Felix and what happened with his brother. Or--” I stop short, about to say _Lael_.

"Tell me,” Dr. Aurelius says after a moment, the question carefully neutral. "What do Felix and his brother have to do with the Avox from the prison? And more importantly, how do they relate to you?"

I don't answer. Felix, who always wears long sleeves so no one will stare at his wrists. Who sometimes comes across as if he doesn't even belong on this floor at all, except on the days his family shows up to visit, when he retreats into his head as if to continue to pretend is just too exhausting. And Lael, who seems to have a permanent chip on his shoulder. Lael, who Felix told me once in confidence was captured with a team of resistance members about to detonate explosives in one of the buildings close to the City Circle. Who even after days of interrogation, refused to give them any names, and was forced to watch as his girlfriend, who had been at home sleeping at the time, was dragged into his cell and beaten by Peacekeepers.

"They don’t." I look him right in the eye. "It was a bad example. I shouldn’t have even brought it up. Let's just . . . let’s just move on to something else."

 

* * *

 

Some months out of the year, there just isn't much to say for the weather in Twelve. Every summer we go through a couple of weeks where the air gets so muggy you sweat through your clothes within minutes of leaving the house. January and February can bring storms so bitterly cold they seem to cause every old injury you ever got to flare up and ache like a sore toenail. And March means icy, unrelenting rain that turns the streets to rivers of mud, pounds on the roof when you’re trying to fall asleep, and seems like it’s never going to end.

But the start of October means fat leaves swirling down from the trees in a soft cascade of cornstalk gold and bright pumpkin orange. It means the sharp scents of wood smoke and apple cider tinting the air, of roasting nuts and baking meat pies, the summer's spoils still plentiful enough to enjoy for a little while before the putting away for winter begins. And best of all, it means chilly autumn nights perfect for two people to light a fire and curl up under a rumpled wool blanket to share peppermint tea and a plate of frosted cookies while watching tendrils of flame lick the rough bricks of the hearth.

And after, once the cookies are finished and the tea set aside, to tug the blanket higher and disappear beneath it, losing themselves in the pleasures of each other's arms.

Tonight as the fire has gradually died down, we've sprawled out across the couch, Katniss cradled against my chest as I kiss along the underside of her jaw. We're touching at every point possible, from my lips at her neck to her arms hooked under my shoulders to our socked feet cuddling beneath the blanket, and over the course of an hour my fingers have inched their way just under the hem of her shirt to slowly trace the bare skin at her waist.

"Katniss," I whisper against her throat, something inside me soaring when she turns towards my lips.

Sucking lightly right at the spot where I can feel her pulse thrumming with excitement just beneath her skin, I drink in her quiet sighs, the way she goes soft and then starts to squirm when my lips touch her skin, the insistence of her fingers curling into the back of my shirt causing me to suck a little harder in response.

Making out with her is . . . _intoxicating_ in the best way, hearing her breath quicken as my thumb draws adoring circles around her navel, feeling her grip on my shoulders tighten almost to the point of pain, the anticipation of her lips on my neck making me so hard I sometimes think I couldn't remember how to mix up a batch of cupcakes if my life depended on it.

_"Peeta."_

I barely have time to lift my head before she's nudging her mouth back under mine, our lips parting and fitting together like a pot mating with its lid. Katniss immediately sighs. Although in some ways she's still the shyer one when we do this, her tongue loses all traces of inhibition the moment it finds itself alone with mine, and I can practically feel my cock grow an extra inch when her fingers come up to grip the back of my neck as if she's trying to pin me in place while they twirl around in silent greeting.

There are times it takes all my willpower not to give in to temptation and lean into her thigh, beg her in a gravelly voice to hold onto my shaft as our hips shift back and forth. To curl her fingers shyly around the swollen head and feel the weight of how much I want her in every jerk and twitch as I grow fat and heavy in her hand.

But Katniss isn't ready for that, and I know it. I’m pretty sure she enjoys what we’ve been doing, but she's still Katniss. Still pure in a way no amount of influence from the Capitol could ever corrupt. Up until now, we haven't done much past kissing, both of us cautious not to push things too far, or move too fast. I know she wants me, and for maybe the first time, I know what's happening between us is _real_. And that makes thinking about the moment she's ready to take those next steps together something that sends a shiver of anticipation tickling down my spine.

I'm so distracted by the dance our tongues are engaged in and the effort it takes to hold myself up without crushing her that I almost miss the way she tenses when my fingertips brush her hip.

I lift my head. "Am I hurting you?"

"No, I--" Her brow furrows, but the expression is erased the instant she catches me looking on in concern. "It's nothing."

She angles her chin towards me and we go back to kissing, but only for another minute or two before she abruptly breaks away again.

"Can . . . can you move your--"

"Sorry." Exhaling, I touch my forehead to hers and then try to give her a little more room. "Better?"

"Um." She licks her lips, pushing her hair back. "No, it's . . . your elbow is . . . maybe we should just switch places. My arm is falling asleep again anyway."

"'Course."

Dropping a quick kiss on the tip of her nose, I shift around so I'm lying on my back. Katniss starts to lean over, seeming to remember only once she's precariously balanced at the edge of the couch that we've tried this a couple of times before and there's really no other way to make it work other than for her to practically crawl on top of me.

I quickly turn a little more on my side, as much as I can comfortably without it putting my leg at a bad angle, but she still chews her bottom lip, staring down at me with large eyes that seem to draw all the shadows in the room.

"Hey," I say softly, pushing back a strand of her hair. "S'okay. We can sit up, if this still isn't good--"

"No," she interrupts, toying with my sleeve. "It's fine."

But her eyes flit downward, carefully avoiding mine. And in the silence that follows, it's hard to miss the uncertainty clouding her features, the confirmation that although the six weeks we'd officially been _together_ had seen a vast improvement in her state of mind, color returning to her cheeks, more smiles forming unbidden, the days she spent in bed staring blankly at the wall growing farther and farther between, there were still moments she couldn't hide that something seemed to be causing her doubt.

"You know you can talk to me about anything, right?" Tilting my head when I don't get an answer, I worm my toe into the sole of her foot.

Katniss squawks in protest and tries to squirm away. I slip an arm around her so she doesn't tumble to the floor, and we play footsie for a few seconds until at last I earn a tiny smile.

 _"Stop it,"_ she orders darkly, planting a hand on my chest and scowling. "That tickles."

"Sometimes you like it when I tickle you," I whisper teasingly, sliding a hand to her cheek and rubbing my thumb across her bottom lip. "Real or not real?"

Color creeps up her neck so quickly I don't even bother waiting for an answer. Sitting up a little to meet her halfway, I draw her mouth down to mine and kiss her softly, tenderly.

After only a minute or so, Katniss leans into me, and I allow her to push us back onto the couch, resting my hands at the small of her back once she's settled against my chest.

Truthfully, I kind of love having her there, everything from the way it leaves both of my hands free to slip under her shirt or slide up her side and graze the edge of her tits, to the way her hair tickles my neck like crazy while we make out. But most of all, because as her lips part mine, nibble softly, or pin me in place for a kiss so deep I'm left out of breath, it feels like that moment back in the tunnels all over again, all her wants and fears and desires on raw display. All _Katniss Everdeen._

Katniss shifts a little, still close to the edge of the couch, and with the hand not helping to keep her balanced, I carefully ease up the back of her shirt. She shivers as soon as my fingers make contact, but despite the chill in the room, I know it's not from the cold.

I start slowly, every time, at first drawing lazy circles at the back of her waist, gradually drifting higher and higher until I'm outlining the arch of her spine. Her breath quickens, and with a huff, she breaks the kiss and buries her face in my neck.

Some of the spots on her back are rough, thick scar tissue from the burns, places that are waxy or toughened like parts of my arms where I can’t feel much at all. But this little patch of skin is baby-soft under my fingertips, thin and undoubtedly extra sensitive, just like all the spots I received grafts of synthetic tissue that the Capitol doctors promised with time would grow back even better than what was originally there. Katniss trembles as I work my way higher, lips touching my throat just as I nudge the strap of her bra.

She's only just started wearing one, only just started _needing_ one again now that she's getting back to a more normal weight. She's still slender, still all lithe arms and legs, but now there's a slight fullness to her tits and curve to her hips that's hard to miss in snug shirts and soft knit sweaters that cling to her frame.

"Is this okay?" I manage in a husky voice, trailing a single finger horizontally along the strap's silky bottom edge right where it meets her skin, hard as a stick of wood just from _imagining_ what it would be like to slide my hand around to the front. "When I do this?"

Katniss shudders, gooseflesh breaking out along the path of my finger. I'd done it before. Twice now. The first time, she went very still, so still that for a good minute and a half, I was sure I was about to get slapped and tossed unceremoniously out on the porch like Buttercup when he got on her nerves, and it was enough to talk me out of trying again for a few weeks. But the second time, she sucked on my neck hard enough to leave a tattling collection of red marks my collar couldn’t quite hide, the sight of which earned a smirk from Haymitch when I showed up at his house to walk into town the following day. 

"Hmm?" I prompt again, fingertips dancing down her spine and back up again.

Still laving my neck with wet, warm kisses, Katniss makes a little sound in the back of her throat and nods. Her hands tighten where they grip my shirt, lips so soft I can barely stand it, and I shudder when she begins to suck at a spot just below my jaw, my cock rising steadily until it feels like I’m standing up straighter than the flagpole in front of the old Justice Building. I stroke her spine languidly, a single finger slipping underneath her bra strap to caress the inch of bare skin between her shoulder blades.

"Do you _like_ it?" I murmur, forcing her to pull back so that I can reach her mouth. My free hand tangles in her hair, a groan vibrating in her throat as she lets me tilt her head to one side to kiss her deeper.

The fire has all but died out, the faint orange glow of a few remaining embers leaving the room so dark, it's nothing but shadows. And in the absence of sight, every other sensation is magnified to the point it quickly grows hard to breathe. The texture of Katniss' tongue moving greedily against mine in the linked space of our mouths. The feel of her hands gripping my shoulders and carding through my hair. The taste and scent of her, wild and earthy from her trip into the woods this morning, and yet undeniably feminine, too, as I kiss my way down to the soft hollow of her throat and taste traces of the lavender soap her mother had sent a few months ago from Four and she’d just recently consented to use.

"Peeta," she whispers, head ducking as my lips ghost over her collarbone.

My fingers glide up her spine and down again, swirling patterns across the warm silk of her skin, a single one sneaking away at the top to delve back beneath the strap of her bra. It traces a little farther out each time, branching away from center, then sliding back in, slowly mapping the unexplored inches of her back.

It’s so good, stopping feels next to impossible, Katniss seeking my lips and offering me her throat in turn, her shirt riding higher up my arm until I can feel the tantalizing whisper of skin pressing into my stomach. And it isn't until I'm sucking hungrily at her neck, lips and teeth having been greedy enough tonight that I can already tell it’s going to leave a mark, that Katniss pulls away, breathing hard.

"We should . . . probably stop." She tugs her top back into place. "It's getting late."

“Oh, um--” I try to sit up too fast and wind up knocking into her chin. "Shit, I'm sorry."

We both fumble for the lamp, but Katniss finds it first. Warm light floods the room for the first time in over an hour, making both of us squint. I smile sheepishly, filled with embarrassment and a pleasant sense of warmth, knowing I must look the same as she does--clothes and hair in disarray, face flushed and lips swollen.

And then she frowns and lifts a hand seemingly without thinking to touch the reddish marks at the base of her throat, and as quickly as that feeling had come, it’s gone. I look away, playing back the handful of times she'd reacted oddly before, gone strangely quiet or simply withdrawn, trying to remember if I'd kissed her neck then, too, been too forceful—

Closing my eyes, I swallow past the dry clump of sand in my throat. "Did I, uh . . . should I not have--"

Katniss makes a sort of strangled noise in answer, and an anxious sensation wends its way through my stomach. "No. It's . . . no. I just--"

I wait while she chews her lip in obvious frustration. Finally, she blows a strand of hair out of her eyes, and I'm reminded by the tiny line creasing her forehead how hard this is for her, what an effort she's been making in recent weeks when before she would have undoubtedly preferred to drop a few hints something was upsetting her and wait for me to figure it out. Katniss Everdeen, who has always carefully guarded her words, despite being braver in some ways than I will ever be. Katniss, who is still reluctant to show any form of affection when we walk into town, even something as innocuous as holding hands. Katniss, who has been the one to initiate virtually _every_ kiss that has come to mean something significant in our relationship, yet shivers at the idea of having a conversation about _any_ of them.

"Before, when we talked . . . we agreed it was better to," Katniss pauses, starting to pick at her nails, "to take things slowly."

Threading our fingers, I rub my thumb back and forth along hers, careful to keep my voice light despite feeling agitated. "And tonight felt too fast?"

She hesitates. "Not . . . no. I don’t know. Maybe.”

I smooth away the same stubborn strand of hair from where it's fallen back across her cheek and wait for her to go on, watching the worry lines in her forehead slowly deepen.

I clear my throat, toying with her fingers. “It’s getting kind of late. We should probably go to bed soon anyway.”

“Right.” Katniss doesn’t quite look at me, and my heart sinks.

"You ready?" I murmur.

Katniss stands first, giving my hand a little tug. I follow obediently, but squeeze her fingers when we're almost to the stairs.

She turns, and I cup her face, giving her lips a quick peck. "I'm going to run back home and make sure Delly and Jasper remembered to turn off the oven."

She frowns doubtfully at the window, where rain is still streaking down, then quickly looks away. "Oh."

And once again, there's that off-note, this time in her voice, barely discernible, but there. Eyes cooling to the approximate shade of flint shards, she sighs, leans up to brush a fleeting kiss to my cheek, then releases my hand.

Not reacting, I watch her walk up the stairs, waiting until the door to the bathroom closes to lower my head.

* * *

The water is running when I get back a little while later. Shaking my hair out, I toe my muddy shoes off at the door, thankful at least the cold rain was always good for solving certain _other_ problems.

The fire in the upstairs hearth has already been lit, and after cracking the window, I strip out of my wet clothes and slide into Katniss' side of the bed to get it warm for her. It’s hard to believe even freshly soaked I’m still the warmer one, but no matter how much she bundles up, by morning her toes always feel like ice.

I’m staring at the flames, lost in thought, when the water shuts off a few minutes later.

“Peeta?”

"I'm back." I glance at the sliver of light coming from beneath the closed door. "You need something?"

There's a long silence. "Um . . . could you see if there's an extra robe in the closet? I think Sae must have taken mine to wash."

"Yeah." I roll out of bed and strap my leg back on, the tiniest bit annoyed at having to get up, but mostly just relieved she wasn't pissed. "Let me look."

When you consider that growing up, someone from town might’ve had two or three shirts for warmer weather and the same for cold, with someone from the Seam counting on even fewer than that, our Capitol-sponsored closets with their racks of garment bags and drawers stuffed with more clothes than either of us could possibly use in a lifetime are a little hard to take in. A lot of my closet feels like it should belong to someone else, even if it was hand designed for me, and I know Portia did her best to draw on personal touches, like my fascination with color. In the same way, Cinna made sure to fill Katniss’ drawers with soft fitted trousers, shirts and sweaters woven of fine cotton and wool in hues that complement the warmer tone of her skin.

"Did you find anything?" Katniss calls from the bathroom over the sound of the tub being drained.

"Still looking."

I finish poking through a few drawers and move on to the hanging bags at the back of the closet, about to tell Katniss she's out of luck when the one I'm holding unzips to reveal some sort of heavy satin robe.

"Found something," I announce, trying to free it from the soft padded hanger. "It's lighter than your other one, but--"

The zipper inches down the rest of the way, deftly cutting off the air from my throat. The robe itself is the pale creamy color of shortbread, long, with a sprinkling of birds and tiny flowers embroidered at the cuffs and neckline. It's a work of art, gorgeous on the hanger, would look even more stunning on Katniss. But what renders me dumb is the . . . _nightgown_ , if it can even fairly be called that, peeking out from between the two front panels. It's the color of a freshly picked apricot, light and fluttery, and so short there's a good chance it would barely graze the bottom of Katniss' butt cheeks while she was standing.

Swallowing, I poke my head back through the doorway to make sure she's still in the bathroom, and then carefully slip the robe off its hanger. The nightgown’s straps are made of soft, glossy satin, thin as a piece of twine. They seem to go down forever in the back, in the front ending at two flared triangles of a pale lace woven fine and delicate as a spider's web. Lace that's obviously meant to cup her tits while letting the color of her nipples show through like two dark bull’s eyes at the center of twin targets. I could only imagine it would have been included with our Capitol-engineered wedding plans in mind, a lie from the start, but that perhaps such a thing of beauty had been intended by Cinna as something more, something just for her, for the day she was finally ready to make things _real._

I swallow again, fingering the lace and trying to imagine Katniss in it, the pale orange set off perfectly by her skin, the lace clinging to her tits, the flush of color in their pert tips drawing me closer until I could no longer suppress the urge to take her by the waist and beg permission to suck them into the wet heat of my mouth.

"Peeta?"

 _Shit_.

Fumbling to shove the nightgown back into the bag, I knock it off the hanger instead, and have to dig around for it, in the process uncovering the tiniest pair of pale peach panties imaginable. _Fuck_.

"Did you find one?" she asks curiously, no doubt wondering what was taking me so long.

“Uh . . .” I rub my eyes, trying to come up with a good answer, one that didn't involve me standing in her closet with an erection, ogling a fancy nightgown Cinna had made for her and trying to work out how much I'd be able to see in it. "Maybe. Just . . . give me a minute."

"If you do, can you set it on the counter?"

"Yeah," I choke in a rasp, managing to get everything back in the bag and on the rack the way it had been, minus the robe. "Sure."

And it's only after, when I've slipped the robe through the door, hurried down the hall to the shower in the next room and stood under a spray so cold it makes my stomach muscles clench to the point they ache, that some measure of calm starts to return as well. Exhaling heavily, I punch the buttons to shut off the water and grab a towel.

Since Katniss and I got together, my morning showers have consisted of about three minutes of washing and ten with my hand wrapped around my cock, these quick rinses I sometimes need over at her house in the evening something else entirely. Stupid as it is, getting myself off with her just on the other side of a bathroom door feels wrong, even though I know going three houses down to do the same fucking thing doesn’t magically transform the path of my hand or direction of my thoughts. But stupid or not, it still makes me feel sick, depraved, makes me think of purposefully pissing on the perfectly formed petals of a fragile mountain daisy. Spoiling something innocent and sweet rather than doing the gentlemanly thing and aiming your stream into the grass off to the side.

It had taken months of practice to reach the point of being able to touch myself safely while thinking of Katniss at all. Weeks spent standing at the gleaming white counter in the bathroom of my room at the hospital, staring into a sketch of her eyes while methodically stroking. Back and forth. Back and forth. Not yet trusting the monster that lurked in the darkest corners of my mind to go near the shower again while doing this, much less pump myself all the way to completion.

And as I eventually begin to make progress, it becomes one of the few outlets to afford me any true relief, propping my sketchbook behind the sink every morning and sometimes late at night when I couldn't sleep as well, slowly working my cock to the drawing of Katniss from the tunnels until I was all but bucking into my hand from the need to release. Until my balls were clenched tight as twin fists and I had to grit my teeth to keep from groaning her name as thick white spurts hit the bowl of the sink.

Katniss is sitting up in bed when I come back into the room, biting her nails and staring at the fire.

"Hey," she mumbles.

"Hey." I briefly glance over to where she's laid the robe across the back of a chair, the creamy fabric darkened in places from her damp hair, but don't comment on it. "You okay?"

"Yeah." She frowns, though, and it's easy to hear there's more to that answer that she _isn't_ saying. "Were Delly and Jasper still up?"

Sinking onto my side of the bed, I unlatch my prosthesis for the second time. "If they were, they weren't down in the kitchen. Why?"

I get a shrug in response. But when she looks down and silently toys with the edge of the sheet, I know the answer. It's the conversation we've been putting off for close to two weeks, ever since the day Delly showed up at the worksite with Jasper in tow only to promptly start crying the moment I reached out to pull her into a hug. Between the gathering crowd of concerned onlookers and Delly’s tears, it took quite a few tries to patch together their story . . . Jasper's injuries, months of attempted rehabilitation, the fading hope his sight could still be restored . . . and the designs District Thirteen had for them both. I didn't have to look at Thom to remember that despite the first group of houses being close to completion, he'd assigned the last free room in the Victor's Village to a family of new arrivals the day before, that Delly and her younger brother would be provided warm blankets and a food allotment from the rations shipped out from Nine, Ten and Eleven, but would most likely be assigned a place to sleep somewhere on the floor.

And without thinking to glance at Thom or Haymitch, without pulling Katniss aside so I could ask her what she thought of the idea, or even debating the ramifications of what I was about to say longer than the words took to leave my mouth, I told Delly she and Jasper could stay with me for as long as they needed.

Katniss stayed strangely silent the rest of the afternoon. When I finally got her alone, I apologized for not talking to her first. She studied my face, took a deep breath, and told me it was okay, that she understood why I’d done it. And for a while, at least, some part of me believed her.

After a moment, Katniss blows a piece of hair away from her nose and switches off the lamp. I let her get settled before curling up behind her.

We have a rule that for now, nothing physical happens while we're in bed together, that at least for the time being it's more important that this stay a place for the two of us to simply be close and keep the nightmares away.

And just like I do every night, I press a single kiss to the nape of her neck as I curl an arm around her, drinking in the smoky scent of her hair and familiar warmth of her body, safe against mine. "I love you."

Katniss sighs quietly at the words, our fingers lacing in the dark. And as the room grows quiet but for the crackle of the fireplace and gust of the wind, I can only reflect that things aren't perfect, not yet.

But for now, they're enough.

 

* * *

 

_Do you think they'll get kicked out?_

I glance up from putting on my shoes long enough to read the message scrawled across the board in somewhat sloppy blue lettering, Felix's normally precise print obviously rushed.

The idea would have made me laugh if he hadn't already been wearing a hole in the tiles pacing for the past hour. "Can people even _get_ kicked out of here? I spent pretty much the first month and a half trying, and all it got me was a lot of quality time in restraints."

Felix scrubs his sleeve over the board as he stalks across the room, starting to write something, then abruptly stopping himself. After the second time, I shake my head.

"What?”

His forehead creases. Taking a breath, he taps the end of the marker against his leg, then for a third time, reluctantly starts to write. I have to squint to read the message when he finally thrusts the board in my direction.

 _Well, they're hardly going to kick out someone like_ you.

"Wow. Thanks, man." Scrubbing a hand over my face, I sink onto the couch. "Way to be a prick."

Felix huffs as he makes another circuit of the room. When I refuse to look at him, he takes a seat on the sofa across from me, one knobby knee bouncing nervously as he writes. I'm turning to the wall panel when the board thumps onto the cushion beside me. I reluctantly pick it up.

_Sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Things are just different for us. And I guess I'm still pissed about that shit he said._

My eyes drift over to the spot on the floor where two orderlies had eventually pulled Lael and Chip apart. The blood was gone, but the sharp scent of the cleaner they’d used still stung in my nose. "Yeah, Chip is . . . fucked up. I mean, it's no excuse. I get it with what happened to his family, though, why he’s still not right. That thing Paylor said about reallocating the next shipment of food and medical supplies must have really hit him hard."

Felix gestures, and I toss him the board. He writes while I glance over at the wall panel again, noting Decima or whoever was taking us was running late and just this once hoping group had been cancelled.

 _I get it. And I feel sorry for him, too. But it gets old, when_ everyone _in fucking Panem views you as this sort of communal dog they can kick any time they're having a bad day_.

He lets his head flop back against the sofa cushion, not for the first time seeming far older than he really was.

“Honest question?”

Felix studies me guardedly, but eventually inclines his chin. Maybe it’s a jerk thing to do, especially when he’s having a shit day, but I don’t pull any punches. Because nice and friendly as Felix is, his family isn’t exactly from an average class, even for Capitol.

“You’re from the Capitol. How did _you_ used to feel about Avoxes?”

He messes with the pen cap. Gets up and makes another slow circuit of the room. And when at last he sits down to write, requires no more than six letters to deliver a message more painful and honest than what I suspect we’ll get from anyone else here.

_I didn’t._

He picks up the television remote, flips it absently. I tap my thumb on one knee.

"Lael sure knocked the shit out of him for saying it, though, huh?"

Felix snorts, waving a hand so I'll throw him the board. It's another minute before it comes sailing back.

_He told me they sent him down to work in the tunnels after he was released. For seven years. That's probably where he learned how to fight. It's rougher down there, from what I hear. Much worse than where I was._

"Sure," I mutter, thinking of the way Pollux went pale and began to sweat like it was the hottest afternoon of the year the moment we were underground, and not wanting to imagine the sort of nightmares Lael must have to look forward to every time his head hit the pillow. I toss over the board. "I hope he doesn't have to go."

Felix grunts in agreement and lobs the board back my way.

 _Lael says he knows Dr. Aurelius from before. Decima, too. That's why he got to come here in the first place. Maybe it will be enough, even with him attacking Chip_.

I'm barely finished reading when Felix motions for the board back, fighting to conceal a smirk as he scribbles something down and flips it my way.

 _He told me they're_ together.

I raise an eyebrow, watching him slowly form the signs for _sun_ and _teacher_ , and then outline his eyes like he's tracing a pair of glasses for Decima. "Together . . . you mean like--?"

Felix nods, already writing again.  

"So, was Lael one of the ones Dr. Aurelius taught to sign?"

Felix quickly shakes his head and scrubs out what he'd been working on, scribbling out a final, hasty message just as someone keys open our door.

 _Resistance_.

I just stare, but there’s no time to question it, barely even time for Felix to get the board turned around before Hadriana enters the room wearing her usual expression, which around me is never very cheery. Felix, she’s always had a soft spot for, Avox or not, so she’ll let him stop for water in the hall or go check out something to read from the recreation room even if it’s not his scheduled time, whereas even before the chair throwing incident down in the kitchen, I’ve never been much above lizard-mutt in her book.

We're late to group, but not so late that we've completely missed the part where we go around the circle and remind each other why Panem has us all locked up here in the first place. I grab a cup of water and slide into the only empty chair left, the one across from Felix and next to a woman named Shale, who rarely looks up unless it’s to throw away a tissue or check the clock on the wall to see how much longer we’re all stuck in here together.

Dr. Alexander greets us both with a warm smile, but continues listening intently to a man who hasn’t been at group before, and one who isn’t wearing the hospital’s uniform, which means he must just be an outpatient. He’s maybe Finnick’s age, easy to peg as Capitol from the weird facial piercings and tattoos that extend down both arms to his hands, even if his voice wasn’t a dead giveaway.

“--happened so fast, then. I don’t remember how I got on my knees . . .just that suddenly they were tying me up . . . stuffing rags in my mouth, and raiding what little food we had left.”

 Stomach churning uncomfortably, I scan the large white board on one wall, the one sort of like Felix's, but the size of the chalkboard the teacher used to write on in school, where two words are scrawled: _SURVIVAL RESPONSE_.

“--watched Sol stop breathing while they stepped over him like a _thing_ and walked out our door.” He blinks, face having turned red except around his piercings, where it’s an icy white. “I’ve tried to find out who I should contact to report the soldiers for what they did, but so far I’ve gotten nowhere. _No one_ seems to care. To the new government, if you’re Capitol, you must have been in the wrong. They don’t see us as _people._ One woman I spoke to listened to me describe everything they’d done, went very quiet, then asked if I had any idea how many people had been killed by Peacekeepers in the districts before she hung up the phone.” Wiping his eyes with two fingers, he forces out, “Sol worked at the library. I’m an electrician. We were no threat to anyone. We didn’t like Snow, but what could we do? We were just waiting for the war to end.”

He keeps going, but I’m no longer listening. Instead, I rub my thumb in slow, methodical circles around the waxy rim of the cup to stop my hands from twitching. Someone on the other side of the circle hesitantly goes next, but I don’t look up. Survival response is pretty simple, really. So simple, that when in danger, a chemical response is triggered, neatly switching off our ability to reason and forcing us to choose in that split second, which of the three paths might result in our survival: flight, freeze, or fight. Simple, when broken down to purely physical responses beyond anyone’s responsibility or control. Painfully, desperately simple, the argument that Katniss and I hadn’t asked to be reaped, hadn’t wanted to be pawns in anyone’s game, would never have chosen any of this. Simple, the truth that Cato, who stabbed pleading girls in the dark with glee in his eyes, Clove, who collected knives as if they were toys, and Brutus, who’d killed savagely in his first Games, and jumped at the chance to enter another arena, hadn’t asked to be shaped from birth into what they were, either. Simple, how quickly we could turn to monsters in the dark.

I take a swallow of water and watch the rest swirl in the bottom of my cup, stomach churning. Felix was nearly done with what he usually said each week, making me the last one left who hasn’t gone. Part of Dr. Aurelius’ goal for me in attending the meetings is participation, but tonight it’s all I can do not to throw up.

“Thank you, Felix,” Dr. Alexander says as the former finishes signing and Dr. Aurelius falls silent. When I don’t volunteer, the trainee doctor clears his throat. “We’ve talked at length in the past few sessions about the aftermath of trauma . . . depression, anxiety, self-harm . . . and tonight I want to focus on one of the most common reactions to a traumatic event, and that’s guilt.”

Felix nods. The girl with pink hair, whose name I keep forgetting, but whose voice is low and smoky enough that it always makes me long for Katniss, looks away. Most of us simply don’t react. After a moment, Dr. Alexander continues.

“Guilt isolates. Immobilizes. Can cause us to get stuck in harmful ways of thinking for months or even years, rather than processing the traumatic event and moving on to lead productive lives. Guilt is felt nearly universally in the wake of trauma, and can assume numerous forms . . . guilt for actions taken or not taken that resulted in harm . . . guilt for choices made in a situation where it was impossible to fight off someone stronger than us . . . and guilt for surviving when others did not.”

Rising from his chair in the circle, he goes over to the board. “Guilt, by definition, is _a feeling of having done wrong or failed in an obligation_. This, however, assumes two conditions almost never met in the context of a traumatic event . . . that the individual will have freedom of choice and the power to exercise it."

Finishing the water, I crumple the cup, tossing it back and forth from hand to hand while he passes out copies of an article we’re all going to read and discuss. There’s a huff from my right. Quin, who doesn’t seem much more interested in talking from the way he grips the wheels of his chair tighter with what remaining fingers he has, pointedly ignores the handout. Shale, who sits on my other side, rips a tissue into pieces so small they bloom into an oversized dandelion puff in her lap. I let the sheet of paper sit untouched for almost a minute before reluctantly grabbing it. We’ve had to do this a couple times, and while I’m not an idiot or anything, these articles are always written by people like Dr. Aurelius, and usually have a word in every other sentence no one planning our coal-based curriculum ever thought to teach us. Everyone else in the group being from the Capitol, Two, or in Chip’s case, Three, for sure attended better schools.

It’s a fairly long article, and I stumble more than once in the opening paragraph. But it’s somewhere in the middle of the third that my throat starts to close, tension knotting in my gut so tight it feels like a knife as the image in the back of my mind grows painfully clear. And suddenly, I can’t bear to be in that room another second, trapped while a flimsy sheet of paper informs me in haughty Capitol language that Katniss is caught in a cycle of depression and hopelessness. That she’s staring into the fire, day after day, internalizing feelings of blame, telling herself no one could possibly understand what had really taken place, that she had committed an act that was somehow worse than all the others, somehow more shameful. Somehow unforgivable.

“Peeta?”

I jerk at the touch to my arm, the memory of Katniss’ haunted eyes the day of the execution dissipating as the forgotten paper flutters to the floor.

“Yeah,” I mumble, neck growing hot as I quickly grab it. “I, uh . . . I don’t feel so good. Can I go back to my room?”

“Of course.”

Hadriana escorts me there, frowning suspiciously, but I ignore her. Sinking onto the couch, I toss the crumpled article aside and close my eyes, no longer there in the Capitol, squeezing the life out of a mutilated paper cup, but back in Twelve, lost in watching the flames slowly dying out as Katniss waits alone in an empty kitchen, the memory of Prim flickering pale and indistinct as a ghost, all but consumed by the lonely howl of the bitter March wind.

Exhaling hard, I toss the cup and catch it, thinking of all the songs on the voice recorder that I played on a loop every night, the only way I managed to get any sleep. More than once, I’d tried to picture Katniss locked in her old room in the Training Center, staring out a window as she sang hauntingly to the mountains off in the distance. Never before this moment had I thought to question why she’d suddenly gone silent as soon as she returned home--

There’s a knock at the door. I let the cup land on the table beside the paper ball, rubbing the back of my hand instead when Dr. Aurelius comes in.

“Peeta,” he says carefully. “I thought I’d come check on you.”

His posture is casual, but I don’t miss the implied question in his tone.

Shrugging, I glance up at him. “What about Felix?”

Dr. Aurelius smiles. “This is an excellent opportunity for Dr. Alexander to show off the signing he’s been so diligently studying, and for Felix to be pushed a bit out of his area of comfort, which he’s more ready for than he gives himself credit.” He tilts his head. “You were very quiet tonight. Even more so than earlier.”

I just nod.

After a moment, he steps away from the wall. “Do you feel up to walking for a bit?”

We wind up on the hospital’s observation level, which is on the slightly smaller of the two connected towers. Most of it is enclosed, small potted trees clustered with tables and benches along the inside wall with clear views out to the city through unobstructed glass. At the center of the roof is an open space where plastic sheeting covers rows of planting beds, accessed only through a door marked: _CLOSED (Oct-Mar). Therapy Garden_.

I stiffen, something catching in my throat at the memory of another rooftop, another day, of a moment so perfect neither Katniss nor I ever wanted to let it go.

"Can I, uh--" I swallow. "Can I go outside? Just for a minute? It’s been so long."

Dr. Aurelius smiles mildly. "I suppose that would be all right. Provided you don't mind it being a bit on the cold side."

My hand is on the door before he can think of a reason to change his mind, propelling me towards the beckoning night in case all I'm to be granted is a few precious seconds of fresh air.

After months of living like a lightning bug trapped in an old cracked mason jar, my environment never straying outside a carefully controlled window of a few degrees, of lacking the freedom to program the shower outside a predetermined range, much less heat or chill what I ate to my liking, the brilliant shock of the cold slaps me silly. I close my eyes, shuddering, the single clarion breath shocking me more awake than I have been in days as Dr. Aurelius and I make our way to the small stretch of railing. It’s been almost three months since I last tasted fresh air, since the day I saw Katniss Everdeen’s face, three months since she and I were ripped apart and my every thought became about somehow finding a way back to her.

I clear my throat. “Has anything changed? With Katniss.”

We’re still two days away from the one where I’m allowed to ask, so I don’t really expect any answer, but the grim set of his mouth allows one to slip past.

I curse under my breath, shivering when the cold finally reaches my stomach. He was right. It’s fucking freezing out here, and right now the hospital’s stupid blue tunic and pants feel like they’re made out of tissue paper.

I try again. _“Why_ do you think she won’t move?”

He doesn’t answer that either. A few errant snowflakes drift down as I stare out into the night, wishing I were close enough to the mountains off in the distance to taste the clean piney air that undoubtedly would have smelled something like home.

“What we were talking about tonight,” I begin haltingly. “Being trapped . . . stuck. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.”

Dr. Aurelius lets his gaze flick towards some lights off in the distance before looking down. “We should go back in. Your grafts are still healing and I highly doubt the burn unit would appreciate your thanking them for all their hard work with a case of frostbite.”

The blast of warm air immediately makes my nose start to run, and after wiping it on my sleeve, I stuff both hands in my pockets.

“Guilt can be one of the more challenging emotions to deal with during recovery because it’s one we tend to guard very closely out of shame. It can feel . . . in a way, significantly more personalized than some of the other typical post-traumatic reactions.” He pauses, turning to stare out towards the City Circle. “In the wake of trauma, there is the desperate need to prevent its recurrence by any means necessary, to regain a sense of control in a world that no longer feels safe. Guilt, somewhat cruelly, can serve this purpose. We insist to ourselves that somehow events could have been altered if we’d taken a different street home, called a loved one and therefore not been on a certain elevator at the wrong time . . . that it must have been in some way our fault, and therefore if we are vigilant enough in our control, we can prevent its recurrence. Guilt becomes preferable to the idea that what happened was random. Senseless. And that something like it could happen again."

I pull my hands free, rubbing at the bandage over Katniss' scar as he lapses into silence.

After a long time, he lets out a breath. “There is a theory that sometimes when a loved one passes and there is no body to bury, no concrete way to mourn, the heart can become the graveyard of the deceased. That clinging to negative emotions such as pain, shame and guilt can serve as a way of maintaining a memorial . . . sort of an internally carried graveyard.

I frown. “I don’t understand.”

Dr. Aurelius rubs his beard, considering his words. “In the midst of grief, guilt can seem like the only way of holding on to the person who was lost. The sufferer becomes convinced that to move on would mean to forget, even in some small way, everything that person had meant. Guilt, then, serves both as a silent act of self-punishment, and also as an expression of deepest love, a testament of loyalty to those who have been lost."

I swallow, picturing Katniss again.

Dr. Aurelius checks the time. “We should get back.”

The elevator ride down to the psych floor is silent. I remember to ask when we’re almost back to my room. “What’s going to happen to Lael?

He doesn’t answer right away, so I add, “Felix is worried he’s getting kicked out--”

“He isn’t,” Dr. Aurelius interjects quietly, keying open my door. “And I’ll speak with Felix.

I start to go in, but he stops me.

“There’s something else I came here to tell you.

It’s there in his voice, even before I meet his eyes, a slight shift in tone, if not demeanor. And just like that, a seed of doubt that had been there for some time, silently strengthened by what Felix had said, begins to grow.

“Paylor called,” he continues, giving that much a chance to sink in, even though both of us already know what he’s going to say. “She would like an answer by tomorrow morning.”

“Okay,” I tell him at last, going inside. “I’ll make sure she has one.”

Hours later, I'm lying awake, still picturing Katniss and thinking about what Dr. Aurelius said, having no way to know that in exactly one month's time, I would be putting on clothes Sae had sent and boarding a train that would travel through the night to arrive at the station in Twelve in the early morning hours just three weeks before Katniss’ eighteenth birthday.

As it turns out, there are a lot of people I owe. Rue and Thresh, who saved Katniss when I was half-dead. Finnick, who kept her from losing herself. Haymitch, who may have his bad moments, and others that remind me that no matter which one of us he had to lie to, let down, or leave behind, he is ultimately still the only mentor to have had both tributes survive. And somehow pulled it off in consecutive arenas. Delly, for reminding me what it meant to be a friend. Annie and Jo, who always take my calls when Katniss needs time to herself and I just need someone to listen. Katniss, because she’s always had this way of saving me in ways I didn’t even know I needed saving until she was just _there._

And Dr. Aurelius, who helped us both, and so many others, get better when there were days I thought we never would, and for what he said to me that day about guilt. That it works its way inside, a sliver of wood imbedded in a wound, one that stays buried under years of faded plaid dresses, plaited braids and whispers traded under threadbare quilts where no one else can see the true cost of all that was destroyed. That it feels like a penance we’ll always bear alone, love forged into pain with the same horrifying ease that hair and flesh and bone and a lifetime of memories that will never be formed could be burned to ash. That sometimes, the only way to move on is to find another way to mourn. Because on that night as I stare up at the ceiling, unable to sleep for worrying about Katniss, I finally know what I’m going to do.

The sun is rising as I reach the woods, winking through the treetops as I coax clumps of primroses from the cold, dewy earth. They bounce along cheerfully as I maneuver the wheelbarrow around broken bricks and fallen debris, bright yellow petals alive with the promise of spring. Something that would live on and return every year to honor the memory of a cherished sister who should never have been taken so soon. Who’d loved an ugly cat, smiled at a grumpy mentor, and come to visit her lost cause of a former neighbor nearly every day in Thirteen when he was still tied down in restraints.

And I’ll always owe her for that.

Initially scowled at for my efforts by an unkempt, wild-eyed Katniss Everdeen, I’m within seconds of stabbing the spade back into the earth and digging her flowers back up when she jerkily lifts her chin in something not unlike acceptance and darts back into her house. I close my eyes, lean hard on the shovel, and then continue planting her primroses while inside, glasses shatter and doors slam. And it isn't until hours later when I hear the terrible keening wails, find her crumpled on the floor with the world’s filthiest and unquestionably most loyal cat mewing despondently at her side that I have any inkling something might have changed, the redness of her eyes and limp of a subdued Buttercup as he follows me up the stairs and watches me lay her on the bed bringing me to taste the first salty tears of hope.

In the morning, Sae hugs me hard enough to crack a rib, scolds me for getting too thin, and orders me to the table where she puts enough bacon and eggs onto my plate to feed half the old Hob. She and I do most of the talking over breakfast. Katniss rests her chin in one hand and feeds strips of bacon to Buttercup one at a time, sneaking the occasional glance over at me.

I can’t keep my eyes off of her. She’s painfully thin, cheekbones sharply pronounced, her irises no longer the soft gray of a dove’s wing, but the foggy hue of fallen ash, as if the destruction of Twelve has been written indelibly into her soul. Sae tries to protest when I start to clear the plates, seeming not to understand that she, too, is among the many people I now owe. For protecting Katniss in the months I was away. For keeping careful watch over her when I could not. For keeping her alive when she’d wanted to take her life, staying with her until I was able to find my way back to her again.

And as I begin to fill the basin, watching Katniss swipe a hand across her cheeks and reach down absently to pet her cat, broken but miraculously _alive,_ I know it is a debt I will be hard-pressed to ever repay.

 

* * *

 

"Quit squirming around. Don't want to catch your ear." 

"Sorry," I mumble, risking one last look at Katniss and Delly over at the sink as Sae wets, and then combs a particularly unruly section of hair. "I'll hold still."

Katniss snorts. I'm trapped in a hard wooden chair with an old sheet pinned at my neck, cold steel scissors scratching their way down my scalp, and still it's all I can do not to turn and seek out her eyes like I hadn't just sworn to Sae to quit fidgeting the minute before. There's another animated whisper from Delly, and over the trickle of running water, something that sounds suspiciously like my name.

"Look down," Sae instructs, and presses my head forward with commanding fingers. "In all my days, never have seen so much hair on a boy."

I force a laugh just as the water shuts off. Footsteps approach, boots and a dark pair of trousers coming into view. Katniss plucks one of the trimmed curls from the pile forming in my lap.

"Not _too_ much, all right, Sae?" she murmurs, slowly twirling the strands back and forth as if they were a dandelion puff she was preparing to send swirling off into a summer breeze.

Fingertips whisper teasingly across the bridge of my shoulder just before she walks away, and for a second, the tension in my chest eases, a rush of warmth blossoming in its wake. Clearing my throat, I shift in the chair.

"So what happened last night after we left?"

Sae makes a clucking sound under her tongue. "Well, after Silas got through making a fool of himself, Thom stood up, and told the room he thought things were getting off on the wrong foot. Said he'd been one of the first ones off the hovercraft, and he sure didn't want his name in a bowl more times than anyone else's. That the only way for us to get a fresh start here was for things to be square between neighbors from the very first brick."

"It was so amazing," Delly chimes in. "I never really knew Thom before, not that well, what with him being a few years ahead of us in school, but he just has this way of talking that makes you want to stop and listen."

I hide a smile, Delly, despite a tendency to go on and on until her face flushes pink having always been able to find the best in people.

Twelve being Twelve, it had taken us two nights and a total of six hours to hear propositions and hold a vote by show of hands on what to do with the remaining houses in the Victor's Village. One would eventually be turned into the new mayor's home, another reserved for official guests, though both of these would also be utilized for refugees for the time being, as would two others, which would continue to do so until such time that there was no longer a need. The remaining five houses would be added to the roster of eligible living assignments, along with the six the whole district had been working for months to build and that were now ready for occupants. And that was the point at which discussions had broken down.

The one thing people in Twelve seemed to be of the same mind about was wanting some say in the matter of where they were going to live, rather than it being an assignment determined by someone down at the Justice Building like the old system, but it quickly became obvious no consensus would be reached on how to fairly decide who got first pick at the best housing.

And that immediately set off a firestorm of questions. Should the first drawings be limited to those who had returned to Twelve and been assisting with reconstruction a certain number of months, or was everyone eligible, even newly arrived families who had been back only for days? Someone raised their hand and suggested drawing order take into consideration previous residency, neatly squeezing out the handful of former citizens of Thirteen who had been helping with clean-up for months, while still others argued it made better sense for the larger homes like those in the Victor's Village to be reserved for the biggest families. It was around the time a loud voice in back suggested one slip in the bowl for every month spent rebuilding that arguments had broken out, Katniss had started looking sick, and Haymitch and I had taken her home.

"Turns out you weren't the only one who thought so," Sae remarks as she trims along the back of my neck, and then straightens my head once more. "He wasn’t the only nominee for mayor, but I heard he won by close to forty votes. Even bein’ Seam. Never thought I'd see the day."

Her fingers soften in my hair as she sections off the last part that's still on the scraggly side, and I don't say anything, but it's hard not to wonder if the coming months aren't going to be the first time for a lot of things.

"What did they finally decide on?" I ask distractedly, studying Katniss from across the kitchen as she stands on her toes and tucks the breakfast plates back into the cupboard.

This time it's Delly who answers, but something in her voice is the slightest bit off. "To pick three people to serve on a temporary housing committee and have them work out what's going to be fair to the most people. Thom told anyone who was interested to come find him this morning at the work site--"

She trails off suddenly.

I frown, watching as she starts to blink very fast. "Dells?"

"Sorry," she whispers from behind her hand, fingers squeezed together so hard that they're turning white. "I'm sorry.”

Katniss closes the cabinet, going still, and for a moment, the silence is broken only by the apologetic snip of Sae's scissors

“What happened?” I ask softly.

Delly presses her lips together and blinks back tears. “Nothing, really. It's just . . . last night after the meeting, Jasper, he got frustrated and--"

An awkward silence settles over the room.

I give her a hard look. "How is Jasper? _Really_ , Delly."

She takes a minute to fold and smooth one of the dishtowels, then to unfold it and start all over. "He's . . . this has all been so hard on him."

Her voice wobbles, and in it, I hear every fear I've seen written on her face for weeks when, more often than not, she's come over for breakfast with a too-bright apology on Jasper's behalf. And remnants of the brave determination that had seen her at the worksite every day, the same girl who’d never wanted to get her dresses dirty when we were kids learning to frame a house, mix cement, and hang shingles under Thom's careful direction.

Her private worry something I knew she didn't dare say aloud for fear of hurting the younger brother she used to drag everywhere after her, it was there in her eyes all the same. That he was never going to get better. That the chemical burns he'd received when a pod had gone off during his squadron's initial sweep into the Capitol had caused lasting damage to far more than just his sight.

Hesitantly making her way back across the room, Katniss starts to lift a hand and then pulls it back as if debating whether Delly would welcome someone touching her arm at all.

"Past few years have been hard on a lot of folks," Sae remarks before unpinning the sheet and tapping my shoulder to pronounce me presentable. "Hidin' in that room won't change things."

"No, I . . . we've talked about it." Delly's cheeks flush the color of new begonia blossoms.

Nodding, I get up to retrieve the broom and dustpan from the closet, meeting Katniss' eyes as Delly hurriedly explains Jasper _has_ been trying, she knows he has, but Thom and the others were still struggling to come up with tasks at the worksite he could do with such a severe impairment to his vision, tasks that weren't simply meaningless and meant only to fill his time, or the simplistic jobs usually given to the children. But even those assignments were still proving hard to complete without assistance.

Sae listens to us go back and forth for a few rounds before slipping out to collect her granddaughter from the other room.

I finish emptying the dustpan and lower my head, waiting until the front door claps shut to lean back against the counter and pinch the bridge of my nose. "So what does Jasper say when you talk to him?" 

Delly bites her lip, eyes growing glassy. "Last night he told me that . . . I think he just feels so worthless right now. He relies on me for so much, and it was never like that before. If Jasper had his way, he would be helping to rebuild Twelve, making sure we had a new place to live, and then we would be reopening the shoe shop. But . . . the more he tries to take on, the more obstacles he seems to come up against. In bright light he can still make out a little, but not enough to get around and be helpful someplace unfamiliar and full of potential pitfalls like the building site. He’s trying so hard to be brave despite everything that’s happened, but,” her face crumples, "what sort of future can there be for someone like him?”

I open my arms and pull Delly into a hug. Katniss watches, expression indiscernible, but her observant gray eyes never leave the two of us until at last, Delly steps away.

"Give me some time to think on what to do," I say as she wipes her nose. "I promise, I'm not going to give up on the two of you."

The words threaten to send Delly into a fresh wave of tears, but instead she blinks and tries to smile. "Thank you. _Both_ of you. I should really get back. Check on him." She turns to Katniss. "We should get together soon. Just the two of us. Even if it's just for a walk one day after supper."

Something in Katniss' face softens. She chews her lip, fidgeting in place. "Okay."

When she's still standing there after Delly has gone, playing with a loose thread on her sleeve and not saying much, I clear my throat. "You're quiet."

Katniss switches to picking at her nail beds. I lean over and hook a finger in one of her belt loops, tugging her closer. She narrows her eyes, but a smile threatens to break through when I trap her in a hug and begin kissing her neck.

"You know I don't have feelings for anyone but you, right?" Having scooted us over to one of the barstools and started peppering kisses along the edge of her hairline, I whisper the question just behind her ear, the one with the _extra_ good hearing. "Delly's practically my sis--"

I catch the mistake a second too late, the way Katniss tenses before quickly turning her head making me want to kick myself.

“Shit. I’m sorry, Kat--”

It’s a pathetic apology, considering the offense, and she doesn’t answer for what seems like forever, finally blowing out a long breath. “It . . . isn’t that. I'm just having an off day."

Gently turning her around, I cup her face in both hands, tracing her cheekbones until at last she lifts her eyes to mine.

“I’m sorry. I would never hurt you.”

Blinking quickly, Katniss ducks her head, but nods. I kiss her forehead, drawing her to my chest for a few seconds, then pulling back so I can see her face.

"If I _had_ done something that upset you, would you tell me?” I ask delicately.

Katniss squirms, immediately looking away. I watch her rake fingers through her hair, clearly agitated.

"I . . . yes, but . . . do we have to talk about this right now? Dr. Aurelius is about to call you, and I'm late to get Haymitch."

Ignoring the fact that she was stalling and we both knew it, that Haymitch was usually passed out cold and had to either be doused with water or dragged from his house with the promise of a warm pastry and a thermos of hot tea if I hadn't made it over to his house beforehand, I shake my head.

"When _can_ we talk about it?"

She sets her jaw. "How about tonight?"

Her voice is flat, and I have to remind myself to take a breath before reacting, that this was still hard for her.

"Okay," I say softly, catching her hand and pecking a kiss to her forehead. "Don't let Haymitch up on any ladders until I get there."

Katniss snorts, the corner of her mouth pulling into a half smile just as the phone starts to ring. Wordlessly, she leans up on her toes and kisses me once, softly, eyes holding mine until the moment she steps away and I head into her study to answer it.

"Hello?" I sink into one of the wingback chairs.

"Peeta," Dr. Aurelius greets, as if it wasn't at all out of the ordinary for him to be calling me over at Katniss' house instead of mine. "How are you this morning?"

"Okay," I reply cautiously, wondering if he was really going to give it a rest, or if I was in for yet another lecture about how living together right now would be _detrimental_ to our efforts to reestablish a sense of normalcy and trust. That such a decision needed to come about because Katniss and I made it together at the right time for us, _not_ because we were under pressure to do so for external reasons; as had been the case at so many points throughout the history of our relationship.

I don't jump in to talking right away, and he doesn't remark on it, just waits while I frown and run my finger along the arm of the chair.

"I . . . had the dream again. Last night."

"Which dream is that?"

Swallowing, I sit up straighter, wishing I'd thought to pour a glass of water before he called. "You know, the one where I'm . . . where they've just brought me back from the Capitol, and Katniss comes rushing in to see me, and I--"

My voice cracks and I quickly wipe my eyes, face flaming. There's the sound of shuffling papers on the other end of the line.

"And has this dream changed any from the last time we talked about it?" Dr. Aurelius asks gently. "Do you picture hurting Katniss in the present or feel that she poses a threat?"

"No."

"How have things been between the two of you since we last talked?"

I let out a huff, not quite sure how to respond to that one. Therapy doesn't work unless you tell the truth. It’s pretty simple. But that wasn’t making me any more eager to go into detail with what kind of progress Katniss and I had been making under the blanket on her couch.

"They're . . . I mean, for the most part, good. Sometimes . . . I guess I'm not sure if I'm making more out of something than what it is." Licking my lips, I go on. "The other night, I was kissing her neck. Her throat, I guess, and it seemed like we were both, you know, enjoying it, but then all of a sudden she pulled away. Said it was getting late."

Dr. Aurelius is silent for a beat too long, as if he's not certain I'm really finished, and I feel my neck grow hotter.

"Did you ask Katniss about it?"

"Yes."

"How did that conversation go?" There's the click of a pen, and I can picture him leaning back in his fancy desk chair hundreds of miles away in the Capitol as if he knows that despite his extensive credentials, he’s about to have to listen to pretty much the exact same conversation you could overhear in any schoolyard after classes got out.

"I, uh, asked her if I shouldn't have . . . you know . . . and she said--"

"I'm sorry," Dr. Aurelius interrupts. "But it's important we be clear. Shouldn't have--?"

I grunt again and rub my face when the heat spreads. "Um . . . sucked on her neck, I guess."

"And do you feel certain Katniss was clear with what you meant?"

 _"Yes,"_ I reply curtly. "She said something about how when we talked before, we agreed to take things slowly." I give him a minute because I know he's still writing . . . probably has enough notes on our sessions for a whole freaking book by now. "I asked if tonight felt too fast, but she said no. And then we pretty much just went to bed."

"And do you have any particular reason to believe she wasn't telling you the truth, or at least, attempting to?"

"What?" Frowning, I switch the phone to the other ear. "What do you mean?"

"Just that when we communicate, it can be easy to overlook that a conversation has two parts. What is said, and what is heard. Each of us is the product of a unique background, our own personality and strengths, and our own anxieties to deal with . . . and because of all these factors, we don’t always _hear_ precisely the same message that the speaker intends."

Exasperated, I slouch back in the chair. "I was there. Everything seemed fine, and then she got really nervous all of a sudden."

"And there may very well be truth to this reaction that you and Katniss will need to further discuss,” Dr. Aurelius says calmly.  “But it’s also important to recognize our own tendencies and not allow something to cause more anxiety than is deserved.”

“I just . . . don’t want to fuck things up.”

“Tell me more about that.”

Setting my jaw, I stare out the window. “Things are finally . . . going right for us. I don’t want to--”

He allows the line to go silent for nearly a minute, only prompting me when it’s clear I’m not going to go on without it. “I don’t want to--”

I swallow, throat dry as ash. “Lose her.”

“Yes,” Dr. Aurelius says quietly. “And the fear of losing Katniss is something we’ve talked about many, many times before.”

“I know,” I mumble, rubbing my forehead and wondering if somewhere in my file there was a collection of tally marks for all the times he’d had to remind me that for how much better I’d gotten, I was still and maybe always would be a little _off_.

"After your first Games, on the train, you dreamed of losing Katniss to one horrific muttation after the next, and then later, an arena from which you couldn't save her. After the rebellion ended and the two of you were separated, you spent weeks in the Capitol haunted by nightmares of searching for her in the final moments of the Quarter Quell. You couldn't find her, no matter how hard you tried."

"I remember,” I cut him off, a little sick at the memory, even sitting in Katniss' house, still able to feel the kiss she’d given me before leaving.

"Katniss was hundreds of miles away in Twelve, and _’losing her’_ had an entirely different meaning." Dr. Aurelius waits, then continues gently, "And now by every means of measure, she is safe and content in your arms. And accordingly, your dreams are still of losing her, but now of somehow driving her away."

I don't say anything, and after a moment, he adds, "A new relationship can mean many exciting new feelings, but it can also stir up fears and anxiety."

Blowing out a breath, I let my head fall back against the cushions. "Sometimes I feel so . . . good, but . . . still fucked up, I guess. She'll be holding my hand and everything's great. But then she leaves, or I go back over to my house to bake and I start to worry she isn't going to do it again."

"Yes." The sound of static briefly obscures the line. "This is a very old fear.”

I rub the back of my neck. “And I mean, we’ve talked about it in our sessions together . . . I _know_ it hurts her that sometimes I still think she’s going to run off . . . I’m trying not to just blurt out something stupid I don’t mean once I’ve cooled off.”

“Yes. It’s always possible to come back and touch base later if your feelings haven’t changed . . . and far easier than to take back words that may have been hurtful,” Dr. Aurelius agrees. “And something else to keep in mind, is that you and Katniss have had many different words to use to describe each other in a relatively short period of time . . . but a mutually acknowledged, defined relationship is still very new to both of you. It would be fair to expect that it may take some time and patience on both your parts as you come to trust that Katniss _does_ care and _will_ return to you."

I take a careful breath, staring down at the scar on the back of my hand as seconds tick by.

"Sometimes . . . I'm not sure how to tell what's . . . like I'll be thinking about her, and--" I frown, licking my lips. "I don't know what’s . . . _normal._ Parts of wanting her have been damaged by the hijacking, and other parts were left untouched . . . I need to know which parts are safe, you know? Which parts are really _me_."

“Can you be more specific?”

I let out a huff, poke at the arm of the chair, and then reluctantly start to talk. I’m begging the floor to swallow me whole long before the part about the cuffs tearing into my wrists until they bleed, _liking it_ , Katniss yanking me forward with possessive fire in her eyes, and sometimes wanting her to hurt me like that again.

"And what is it exactly that you fear happening if you were to masturbate while showering at Katniss' house?"

I squirm, having hoped he wouldn’t ask me that, or at least not quite so _directly._ "I don't know. That . . . that I could hurt her. That if it triggers a flashback like it did before, I might--"

There's a weighted silence on the other end of the line once I realize he isn't going to jump in and bail me out.

" _What_ might happen?"

I exhale in annoyance. "I could hurt her."

“When we last discussed it, I believe two months ago, you indicated there had been no episodes related to masturbating or any sort of physical proximity with Katniss. That the two of you were sharing a bed every night, but there had been no increase or noticeable correlation with the timing of the flashbacks. In fact, according to the notes you’ve been keeping, they seem to be gradually _decreasing_ in frequency.” Dr. Aurelius waits. "Has touching yourself triggered any episodes that I’m not aware of recently?"

"No," I admit. "But if it _did_ and she was so close . . ."

There’s a long silence. "Have you been experiencing any difficulty with managing the episodes themselves using the techniques we practiced?"

“No,” I say with an edge, because he knows what the fuck I’m getting at, and _why._

"Then why wouldn't you just wait it out like any of the others?"

Digging my nails into my palms, I grit the question out. "Because what if it's _not_ like all the others? I could lose it, just like I did when I attacked her in the hospital. Or later with Squad 451--"

Dr. Aurelius clears his throat.

“Peeta.”

I sigh, lowering my head. Because we’ve been over this. Well, not _this_ this, but close enough. That I’d attacked Katniss in the hospital after weeks of torture and under the influence of a powerful hallucinogenic. That I later had the flashback in the candy colored streets of the Capitol after the doctors and military officials in Thirteen irresponsibly sent me into a war zone when I was in no condition to handle that kind of stress. That we’d worked for many months to help me regain what memories I could and to stabilize those that had been altered before putting me under the weeks of rigorous testing required for me to be allowed to return home.

"I know it’s not a rational fear,” I say weakly, poking at the arm of the chair. "I'm just . . . I'm scared. That it will be like before . . . that I'll have done something awful, something _I_ would never do, and have no memory of it . . . all because there's this monster inside me that I can't predict or control."

"And then what?" he says calmly. "Tell me what happens."

"I . . . hurt her." I don't offer any details and thankfully, this time, he doesn't demand any.

He waits, allowing me to collect myself. "And then?"

Embarrassed to be crying, I rub my eyes and dig out my handkerchief. "I don't know. I guess she freaks out. Leaves."

"She leaves," Dr. Aurelius repeats softly, then goes quiet while I fumble around to dry my face some more. "Is any of this starting to sound familiar to you?"

I scrub a hand through my hair. Because it does, and even though it sickens me to admit how much the thought of losing Katniss fucking terrifies me, it always seems to come back to that. "It's what we just talked about. About . . . losing her."

"Yes. This is simply another facet of that familiar anxiety." I hear the creak of leather as he straightens. "Peeta, do you really believe I would have recommended that you be allowed to return to Twelve if I thought you presented _any_ threat to Katniss?"

To his credit, he always asks it as if it were the first time we were going over all of this.

"No," I mumble, putting the phone on speaker so I could rub the delicate crescent moon of scars Katniss left on the back of my hand.

"I suspect many of these feelings of shame and guilt are holdovers from events in the past, emotions that are warping, to a degree, this definition you've formed of what _should,_ in your mind, constitute normal sexual urges, and what thoughts and feelings are in some way, depraved."

I don't respond, just continue lightly tracing the marks from Katniss’ teeth.

"Several months ago, when we were discussing the kiss that occurred at the lake, you said something to the effect that 'you feel at times you _can't_ stop Katniss.'" There's the sound of flipping pages. "Here it is. _'It's like I'm powerless with her. I want her a hell of a lot more than she wants me. I always have. And she fucking knows it, too. Kind of makes me hate her sometimes.'"_

"I _don't_ hate her," I interrupt in a low voice. “I know what I said, but I was just really pissed off when I said it.”

"Be that as it may, it does seem that some part of you is fixated on, _and_ simultaneously rebelling against the idea of Katniss in control.” He pauses, and when I say nothing, continues. “That part of you seems to believe you cannot say no to her, feels that strong sense of connection to the kiss you shared in the tunnels because in that moment, you felt secure you were wanted. Her feelings for you suddenly became _real_ in a way that wounded part of you had been desperately yearning for, despite all outward appearances, and that left a powerful emotional impression."

I pick at a loose thread on my shirt. "So, you really think it’s safe if Katniss and I keep . . . getting closer?”

“I see no reason to be concerned about it at the present time. I might advise against initiating anything in the period immediately following a flashback, when you tend to be disoriented, or when you can feel an episode actively coming on, but other than that, you’re stable with your medications and making good progress dealing with issues as they arise each week in our sessions.”

“Okay.” I clear my throat, a little shaky with relief.

Papers shuffle again. "One last thing I want you to consider, Peeta, is that in order for some of these anxieties to go away, you and Katniss will need to learn to talk to each other more openly, even if that takes a bit of courage at first."

"I mean, we've _been_ talking. Every night, before anything else happens, we make a point to sit down together and just talk," I mumble, not meaning the statement to sound quite as defensive as it does.

"I'm very pleased to hear that. The next step once communication is actively taking place, is to examine _what_ the two of you are talking about.” He waits a beat. “We’ve already discussed the part of you that sees Katniss as the dominant one in your relationship, but that conversely views her strength as something to rebel against. While theoretically in a healthy partnership, she could fulfill many roles, above all else the two of you should be equals, partners who are able to be honest and open with one another."

I scrub a hand through my hair. "Yeah . . . I, uh, can’t exactly picture holding her hand in front of the fire tonight, and asking her to tie up my wrists."

"I agree it's a bit premature for that particular conversation. But I want you to spend some time thinking about what things you _could_ share. It can be surprisingly liberating when honesty finally overcomes the little barriers we all put in place in the early stages of a relationship. And wonderfully intimate as well."

"All right." I nod even though he can't see. "I'll think about it."

"Good. Now, did you have a chance to think over any of the questions I gave you last time?"

 

* * *

 

"Where are we going?"

It's the third time I've asked, and like the first two, Decima doesn't answer, just drops something in a tray at the nurse’s station and steers me towards the drinking fountain and away from the small crowd returning from one of the morning group sessions.

"Is he sick today?" I ask suspiciously, remembering another time about a month ago when she took me a back way. "Do I have to meet with Dr. Lucius again?"

"No." Her tone is short. 

"Then why--"

"This isn't up for negotiation. And we're already late." We reach the bank of elevators, where she stabs the down button and studies the overhead display. "I'm taking you to Dr. Aurelius. He's just on another floor."

I frown, but there's no chance to get in any more questions before the elevator arrives. Decima raises an eyebrow and gestures for me to get on first. Two women huddle to one side, trying to soothe a fussing baby, and a man with green skin that's the sickening shade of rotting celery stands on the other. The taller woman's silver-swept eyes widen when we get on, and it's obvious she recognizes me, but all I'm interested in is seeing which button Decima selects on the panel beside the door.

I'm silent as the elevator crawls down two floors to _Specialty Pediatrics_ , where the two women get off, then one more to an unmarked floor, where the green-skinned man gives us a nervous glance and hastily departs, leaving us alone.

"So what's on the twelfth floor?"

A lot of them, I’m familiar with by now. Besides my regular appointments with doctors in the burn unit, physical therapy, cardiology, and orthopedics, there are half a dozen others I still have to see from time to time. But none of those appointments have ever been on the twelfth floor.

Decima doesn't respond right away, just pushes up her glasses and pulls out her communication device when it buzzes at her impatiently like some sort of muttated gnat. "Long-term care."

I watch the elevator lights catch the blue streaks in her dark hair. "And why are _we_ going there?"

The elevator stops on the fourteenth floor, but when it opens, the foyer is empty. Decima pockets the device and keys the button to close the doors. She catches my quizzical expression, voice softening a degree. "We'll be there in just a minute. I know you have questions. Dr. Aurelius wants to be the one to explain everything to you."

I don’t say anything, briefly distracted in wondering whether the other part of what Felix had said was true, if they were _together_ , and if so, how it wouldn’t get weird to walk around all day, speaking to one another formally and pretending they weren’t.

Dr. Aurelius is waiting for us outside a room at the end of so many long half-empty corridors I would never have found it on my own, a hallway so deserted it’s almost as if whoever was waiting had been placed there in the hopes their existence would never be discovered. And it's sometime around then, looking back, that I think I start to understand.

He doesn't say anything as we approach, eyes flicking past me to Decima. I wipe my palms on my legs, throat suddenly dry.

"What's going on?"

Dr. Aurelius speaks quietly. "Peeta, several times in recent weeks you've asked whether it would be possible to locate the man who used to clean your cell at the prison." He waits, giving me time to digest what he's saying, to prepare for the question I know is coming. "Is that something you still want to know?"

“He’s--”

I look past him, focusing on the row of closed doors as I try to get my lip to stop trembling. “He’s here? He’s been _here?”_

A door opens near the end of the hall. Dr. Aurelius smiles politely at the passing nurse.

“Did you know he was here?” I demand, quieter this time.

Dr. Aurelius neither answers, nor looks away, but his silence is answer enough. I frown, scrubbing a hand through my hair.

“Will you tell me how _long_ he’s been here?" I don’t entirely succeed in keeping the betrayal from my voice.

"Several months."

"Is he," I pace to the other side of the hallway, rubbing my eyes, "why? Is he . . . sick? Or like me?"

Dr. Aurelius folds his arms. "We talked about experimentation using Avoxes, medical testing and drug trials which, unfortunately, there haven't been and _still_ are not any laws to prevent. Because of some of the procedures Janus was subjected to, he has damage to his liver. They're trying to regrow new cells to replace the ones that aren’t working correctly anymore, but without much success as of yet."

I turn to face him, and realize Decima has disappeared. "Janus?"

"Yes. I told him you were concerned, wanted to know that he was okay.” Dr. Aurelius waits a beat. “He says he'd like to see you."

I must nod. Because suddenly we're standing outside a door as plain as all the others, about to go in. When I dig my fingernails into my palms and draw an unsure breath, Dr. Aurelius tells me it’s okay to take a minute if I need to, but after I shake my head, he raps gently, twice, and keys open the door.

I walk in first. There's this awful instant where my stomach rolls and it feels like I’m being called up to the front of the classroom right after wetting my pants. And right then I can't help but wonder if this was how Delly felt, that first time she bravely came in to see me, if it was how Prim felt. To my shame, I don't have to question how Katniss must have felt.

He's sitting up in bed, propped against a plump stack of snowy white pillows that make a mockery of the frailness of his frame and bony limbs that barely displace the sheets. Pale wisps of hair feather out from a scalp mottled with scars and odd discolorations, and even before he starts to cough, a wet, phlegmy sound, it's clear that he isn't well, the spots on his skin and yellowed coloring making him appear far older than he must really be. He turns towards us, pale blue eyes that are still sharp despite his condition locking instantly with mine.

We stare for what seems like forever, until something drips past my chin, and it's only when I reach up to wipe it away that I realize I'm crying. Dr. Aurelius touches my shoulder, and I jump nearly a foot, but I scrub my face clear and take a step forward.

"Hey . . . I'm, uh, Peeta." I move out of the way to let Decima by, and a moment later the door clicks shut.

He lifts his only hand, and I force myself not to look at the bandaged stump where his other arm ends, watching him rapidly sign something to Dr. Aurelius, who translates.

_"Janus. You’re looking a lot better."_

A laugh escapes me, more tears leaking out. "Yeah, I guess probably so." For a minute it's awkward, and then I clear my throat. "So, uh, is this where you're from? The Capitol?"

He nods, seeming to understand what it is I'm really asking. How he’d gotten _here._ His fingers move so quickly I don't see how Dr. Aurelius can distinguish different shapes. They don’t pause or slow long enough for me to pick out a letter I know, and it seems entirely different from when Lael and Felix sign to each other, although I guess it makes sense if they can use both hands.

 _"Yes,"_ Dr. Aurelius translates. _"Growing up, we lived in an apartment only a few blocks away. My family was in debt. I was the youngest son, without many prospects, and my father wanted me to enlist with the Peacekeepers. Two years into my commitment with them, while assigned to the guard station outside the tunnels leading into the Capitol, my squad was attacked by rebels. One of them shot my commanding officer in the head, then took me as a hostage to make sure they’d be able to get past the security codes. They blew up one set of tracks through the mountains, then let me go. I was charged as a co-conspirator, for cooperating."_

I simply nod, staring at the tubes and monitors and machines connected to a body that now seemed impossibly frail, beaten and cut and tortured within inches of death, _I’m sorry_ painfully pale in the face of all that had been done to him.

“How,” clearing the lump in my throat, I start again, “how did you get out? After they rescued us, I mean.”

The room goes still. His eyes flick to Dr. Aurelius, something silently exchanged before his fingers begin to sign. “I would rather not talk about that.”

There’s an awkward silence while I rub the back of my neck, wishing there was a more gradual way to ease into the next part, but remembering Dr. Aurelius said we had to keep the visit brief.

"I, uh, I just . . . I wanted to say thank you." I kick at a scuff on the floor rather than look at Janus, who was staring at me again. "For when you'd come to my cell. For--"

I swallow hard, eyes starting to sting.

"For . . . trying not to scare me." I blink. "And I guess . . . just, I'm sorry. You know, for everything. That--"

I bite my lip, scrubbing away a couple of those quick, hot tears. "You know, that they came to get me and not you. That I didn’t try to do anything more once I was safe."

There's another long silence. I’m within seconds of bolting for the door, claiming I had to use the bathroom and hoping I wouldn’t have every last privilege removed for the rest of the _month_ when Dr. Aurelius clears his throat and calmly says, "No."

I cut my eyes in his direction, but he's not looking at me. And then Janus waves to get my attention.

_"Not your fault. Look at me. Not your fault. You are not--"_

I watch warily as Janus points to the bandaged stump of his arm.

 _"You did not do this."_ He waits, then gestures to his stomach. _"Or this."_ And finally points to my head. _"Or_ this.” He stares out the window at the Capitol. _”I have spent too long at the mercies of evil men. Men who cut out my tongue, removed my arm merely so doctors could see if it could be successfully reattached, and injected me with drug after drug until my body began to slowly destroy itself. Men I had to watch beat and maim and kill until I no longer wanted to live myself but for the sole wish to stop them.”_

He pauses to cough, then starts signing again. _“That was the work of terrible men. Men who had power, could have stopped what was going on, and did nothing. Not a broken man who’s left to wipe the floors and walls of blood after the guards are through with their clubs. And not the boy they’ve taught to scream any time someone comes to the door of his cell.”_

I don't answer. When our eyes meet again, Janus begins to sign, face softening a degree. _"On the television, just now, they announced there will be a representative appointed to the president’s advisors. Someone to oversee Avox reintegration into Panem society. They tell me others are here, at this hospital, getting treatment--"_

"Two of them are my roommates," I interrupt, voice raspy and for the first time, he smiles.

There's a knock at the door and a nurse enters. Dr. Aurelius squeezes my arm, then quickly signs something to Janus.

I meet his eyes one last time, pretty sure we wouldn’t cross paths ever again. "Thank you for seeing me."

Janus signs a final message as the nurse comes around to his bed.

"I'll tell him," Dr. Aurelius assures, guiding me from the room.

Out in the hall, I shove both hands in my pockets, embarrassed that my eyes were still stinging.

"He said to tell you he was glad to see you were safe," Dr. Aurelius murmurs as we head for the elevators.

I nod, not looking at him. We're just passing by a woman with an overstuffed laundry cart when I ask, "Does he . . . not have any family left?"

"It's . . . complicated." Dr. Aurelius stares out a window as we walk by. "One of his brothers is still living, but so far, refuses to see him."

"Why?"

"After he was forced out of the Peacekeepers, the older brother had no choice but to enlist in his place to keep the family out of debt," he answers in a low voice.

We reach the foyer and I punch the button for the elevator. "Neither of them wanted to join."

Dr. Aurelius sighs, not for the first time in recent weeks looking exhausted. "It's not that simple. The brother was engaged at the time and had a child on the way, neither of which are permitted for Peacekeepers. He had to call off the engagement, and missed watching his daughter grow up. Naturally, there’s some resentment. It's a sad situation from all perspectives."

"Oh," I say quietly, suddenly thinking of Felix and his younger brother, and wondering if they would ever find a way to be close again. "Do you think reintegration will work?"

"I truly hope it will." He leans against the wall. "On good days, I think of the determined people I’ve met over the past twenty years who have waited so long, endured so much, and who will stop at nothing to make this succeed. On bad days, I worry there are problems on both sides I haven't yet heard anyone willing to address."

"Such as?"

The elevator glides soundlessly up to the foyer. Dr. Aurelius extends a hand for me to get on first.

"It will cause even more economic upheaval than we're already experiencing. Many, if not most, of them will not wish to continue doing the jobs they were forced into, and certainly not without fair compensation. And who can blame them? It's an absolute waste for someone as bright as Felix to be mopping floors." He folds his arms. "Eventually the issue of reparations will come up, which I worry could cause both sides to grow even more polarized. There's already resentment for the Avox groups’ initial demands, which were minimal if you consider how most of them live . . . no one is factoring in the cost of retraining them, of the restructuring that will be needed to provide incentives enough for someone else to work those jobs, _or_ them, if they choose, for the medical treatment and therapy most of them will need--possibly all the more if we fully reintegrate.”  

I frown. “Why all the more?”

He shakes his head. "Capitol society places an unfair value on physical perfection. Purposeful disfigurement as a punishment is an unspeakable cruelty many cannot tolerate, and unfortunately the incidence of self-harm among Avoxes is disproportionately high. Reintegration will do nothing to help that."

The elevator comes to a stop, and as I'm waiting for him to sign me back in at the nurse's station, I can't help but think of Felix again.

"You don't think having a representative will help?" I ask as we're walking back to his office.

"I think it will send a powerful message, one that many in the Capitol need to hear. I question whether most of those in power have ever been down into the tunnels, understand the absolutely inhumane conditions there." We come to his door, and he pauses to unlock it.

"Would you do it, if Paylor asked you?"

“No.”

He goes over to the mouthpiece on the wall to order tea. I wander over to our usual chairs by the windows and pick up the rice sack, dropping it absently from hand to hand.

“Why not?”

"It shouldn't be me." Finding a notepad and retrieving the pot of tea, he comes over to the leather chairs.

“They’d listen to you,” I say, sure he has to already know this, that after Katniss’ trial, after all the reports he must have had to file concerning me, the calls about Dr. Gai, his years of experience working with the Avoxes and fluency in signing, there probably _wasn’t_ any other person Paylor would prefer over him.

Dr. Aurelius sets the tea down. "It needs to be one of them."

I frown, starting to ask _why_ again, but something catches my eye, the ugly billowing fern on the stand in the corner, and suddenly I’m remembering something he'd said the last time I was here. That in order to address the nightmares, I had to find the root cause of why I felt I had no voice. To make a decision, _my_ decision, and no one else’s. That part of healing was recovering the feeling of being strong. Taking back control. To no longer feel like a victim.

 _Helplessness and loss of control_ \--

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing.” Rubbing my lip, I flip the rice sack over. "You said, uh . . . you said Paylor needed to know by today.”

“Yes.” He pours our tea and takes one of the cups for himself. “What did you decide?”

I don’t remember his face. I don’t remember _any_ of their faces. I can’t say for certain if he was even there. My testimony may be useful only to demonstrate how completely and utterly the mind of Peeta Mellark is still and may always be broken. But as I think back to the man from group, and to Janus’s account of a lifetime of injustices and regrets, I know that the one thing that will haunt me is to know something I could have said might have made some sort of difference. And to do nothing at all.

"I want to testify,” I say quietly. “But first, I want to see him."

 

* * *

 

"Thanks."

Katniss accepts the heavy mug as I slide into the space beside her on the couch, cupping her fingers around the warm ceramic for a few seconds before blowing across the cocoa's muddy surface and taking a tentative sip. I wait for her to get situated and then tuck an arm around her.

"Good?" I smooth a strand of her hair.

Katniss nods, eyes never leaving the fire that's just starting to fill the cold room with a cozy amber glow, sparking and popping in the silence as sticks of kindling shift in the grate.

"I didn't get it too hot?" I ask again softly, this time grazing my knuckles along the curve of her shoulder until she finally turns to look at me.

"Just right," she answers hoarsely, touching her throat and lifting the mug for another long sip.

"Okay," I murmur, staring at her profile, the firelight bringing out the lush tones of chestnut and mahogany in her hair, a rich, dark mane that now brushed just past her shoulders and defied all my attempts to capture its glory on paper with dark sweeps of charcoal on the afternoons she napped at the other end of the couch.

Her cheeks bloom faintly with color, and I force myself to look away. She settles into my side, and I pull the worn wool blanket over our laps, the lingering whisper of so many nights spent under it wafting up from our warm crevice in the couch--soap, skin and shyly traded kisses. The flames lick greedily up the lengths of pale exposed wood, flaxen fingers tipped in hues of rich cider and the delicate orange of the tiger lilies that used to grow outside the old apothecary. Katniss nurses her drink, saying nothing. When my cocoa is nearly gone, I carefully lace my fingers with hers.

"I feel--"

Katniss’ expression hardens when I don’t go on, and I see in her sudden shift in posture the moment something in her starts to close off. It's another of Dr. Aurelius' games, a way to make sure we touch base every day, and one that never fails to put Katniss on the defensive, even if all we talk about is the number of squirrels she saw in the woods and what I baked for her that morning.

Taking a breath, I start again. "I feel . . . so happy lately. That we're together. That this is _real_."

Beside me, Katniss seems to relax, but only a little. She nods silently into her cocoa, socked feet squirming under the blanket.

I shrug, finishing my mug of chocolate and setting it down on the end table. “Lately, I guess I’ve been freaking out a little, too.” I feel Katniss watching me out of the corner of my eye. “Worried I’m going to fuck things up.”

Her brow furrows, the thumb that had been skating nervous circles around her cup stilling. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” I toy with her fingers. “I’m spending more and more time here . . . the two of us alone every night . . . seems like only a matter of time before I have an episode while we’re--”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Katniss drains the rest of her hot chocolate, then leans forward. “Have you . . . did you talk to--”

“Yeah,” I answer, rubbing my eyes.

When I offer nothing else in response, Katniss stares at the fire, the silence in the room somehow deafening. She picks at one of her nails.

“Can’t you usually feel them coming on?”

I frown, studying her face in the firelight. “Usually.”

And in the seconds that follow, it’s all I can do to keep quiet, to keep from begging from her the one thing I know I shouldn’t, to leave the room, the house, and preferably the entire Victor’s Village should I have an episode, a measure Dr. Aurelius has repeatedly deemed unnecessary and that I know will only spark a fight if I bring it up again.

I scrub my face with both hands. “I’ve been . . . making myself sick worrying over the idea that I could hurt you.”

Katniss chews her lip. “What do you want me to do?”

I reach for her hand, softly tracing the faint pink scars that peek out from beneath the sleeve of her shirt. “I don’t know yet. Let me think about it.”

She nods, and when another minute goes by, I lightly nudge her hip. “Your turn.”

Katniss runs a hand through her hair, then looks away. “Um, I feel . . . I don’t know.” She picks at one of her nail beds. “It’s . . . not that I’m sorry we’re together, but--”

My insides give a sick jerk. Katniss watches the fire for a minute, mouth starting to tremble.

"But?" I say evenly, fighting not to react, knowing I don’t quite succeed in keeping the emotion from my voice when Katniss seems to fold in on herself like a bird huddling away from the wind.

Shaking her head, she chews her lip. “No, that’s. . . I didn’t--”

Her eyes dart around the room like that of cornered prey. And without her having to say a word, I know she’s thinking of running, that the only reason she _hasn’t_ is because it’s so late, too late to go to the woods. I’ve already got her trapped here, and she knows there’s no way I’m leaving without us at least _talking_ about this.

Katniss scowls at the fire like she wants to feed all of my paintbrushes to it one by one, _after_ snapping them in half, and it’s as I watch her lip quivering in anger that I remember something Dr. Aurelius reminded me of weeks before. That for many people, translating emotions into words feels as frustrating as if I were trying to paint an entire landscape holding the brush in my toes. While blindfolded. And that loving someone wasn’t just appreciating the qualities you found most appealing, but making the other person feel accepted and nurtured in the moments they felt the most vulnerable.

“But?” I say, gentler this time.

She closes her eyes. "But . . . being happy feels bad, too, I guess. Wrong, like," a tear traces the edge of her nose and she quickly swipes it away, “most days I know Prim would want me to feel good again.” Huffing out a breath, she clears her throat. “It’s just on bad days that I wonder what sort of person that makes me, for wanting to feel things like that when she isn't here."

"Katniss," I whisper, curling my arms around her and wrapping her in a hug.

She buries her face in my shoulder while I comb fingers through her hair, tenderly kissing the tip of her nose until she ducks her head and scowls.

"You're the very best kind of person," I murmur against her earlobe, enjoying the way her arms have wound their way around my neck like a stubborn blackberry vine. "Selfless . . . fiercely protective . . . brave." Katniss loosens her grip and I gently pull back a few inches. "And the kind whose sister lived every single day knowing there was no little sister on the planet who had ever been loved more than she was."

Katniss presses her lips together, fresh tears shimmering in her eyes. I cup her face in both hands.

"Prim would never have faulted you for being happy."

"I know," she says in a whisper, and then looks down, seeming to want to change the subject. “I’m sorry I haven’t been friendlier to Delly.”

Tucking her hair behind one ear, I watch her expression carefully. "I should have talked to you before telling them they could stay with me." Katniss doesn't say anything and after a minute, I continue. "She's one of my oldest friends. I know you understand my reasons for doing what I did, but I still should have made sure you were okay with it.”

She chews her lip.

"I want to find a way to help Jasper," I continue carefully. “The way so many people helped me. But I want you to be okay with it, too."

Katniss picks at her thumbnail, eyes averted. “She was . . . you owe her."

I watch the shadows flicker in her profile with the pattern of the flames, not missing the silent internal rebuke, perhaps the largest obstacle still standing in the way of them ever truly becoming friends.

Reaching over, I slide my fingers gently between hers. “You know, when you think about it, Delly isn’t that much different from Sae.”

Katniss cuts her eyes towards me, but offers no comment.

I stroke the calloused edge of her thumb. “I’ll always owe Sae for what she did this past winter when I wasn’t able to come home, couldn’t be the one to take care of you, yet. Should I feel bad about that, or just grateful?”

Katniss worries her lip some more, saying nothing, but I can see in her eyes that even if we aren’t yet in agreement, I’ve gotten my point across.

Taking a breath, I smooth a strand of hair off her shoulder. "There's something else I need to ask you. About the other day."

Her brow furrows, and I don’t miss the way her shoulders suddenly tense. “Okay.”

I stroke the edge of her arm. "When I was, uh, kissing your neck, it seemed like I made you uncomfortable. And you, uh, said something about taking things slowly, but when I tried to ask, you didn't really explain."

Katniss stares at the fire. “Um . . .”

She runs a hand through her hair and looks away. I study her profile, not missing that the ivy green turtleneck she’s put on tonight fits so snugly, it's a constant battle not to let my gaze dip south of her chin, but for all the turtleneck's numerous positive qualities, it also conceals most of her neck. And somehow that no longer seems like an accident.

"Was my kissing your neck what made you uncomfortable?" I ask gently, tugging her hand away from her mouth when she starts to bite her nails again. 

Katniss sighs, but shakes her head, the answer quiet, strained.

“No.”

I nod and toy with her fingers. "Was it, uh, the way I was touching your back?"

Color floods her cheeks. “Do we really have to talk about this?”

She yanks her hand away, running it through her hair.

“Was that what--?”

“No,” she snaps, arms folded.

"Huh.” I softly trace our initials over and over again onto the back of her shoulder. "Was it when I slid my finger under your . . . you know, your--"

"No," she croaks, and covers her face.

"That was really okay?"

_"Yes."_

I let my head fall back against the cushions, halfway tempted to pull her in my lap and tickle her until she confesses. We sit for another minute while Katniss glares daggers at the fire and I try to think back to two nights before, whether I’d accidentally touched her somewhere else, when at last she closes her eyes.

"Um . . . at the end." She blows out a frustrated breath, brow furrowed. "Your arm. My shirt was . . . it got caught, I guess. Pulled up."

She looks away.

“Oh.” I swallow, thinking back to those final moments, the pleasure of feeling her skin warm on mine. “Oh. I’m . . . Katniss, I’m sorry. I didn’t . . . I mean,” exhaling, I start over, “I noticed when it happened, but I had no idea you were upset by it.”

She nods quickly, still not meeting my eyes. Very gently, I cup her face.

"I shouldn't have let things go as far as they did without making sure both of us were okay with it." Her shoulders sag slightly. “You know I would never do anything to hurt you.”

And finally, eyes dark as paving stones after a warm spring rain flit to mine.

“Katniss,” I whisper with the tiniest hint of scolding, leaning in to press a kiss to her hairline. “I wish you would’ve told me sooner. "I spent the past two days worried it was something else."

"What?" she asks cautiously, toying with the edge of the blanket.

I let out a breath. “Your neck.”

Katniss turns back to stare at the fire, expression clouding. "It's all so much easier for you. Everything . . . not just _this.”_

I don’t respond, guilt heating the back of my neck even as an automatic denial forms on my tongue, because I know what she’s getting at, that it wasn’t just her reticence or my ability to, as my mother once put it, talk the fat right off a pig, but something far subtler. And the truth was that despite usually being the one to silence attempts at conversation for the evening by sticking her tongue into my mouth, she was still somewhat awkward when it came to parts of it. Whose hands went where. How to angle heads so noses didn’t collide. Details that came only with experience. And without her having to say a word, I can see she wants to ask, wants to know how far things might have gotten between me and anyone else I'd swapped spit with before.

"I've never been in a relationship either," I say carefully. "This is all new to me, too.” When she doesn’t respond, I play with the edge of the blanket. “Maybe it’s like Dr. Aurelius said last week . . . we're going to have to communicate as we go along . . . let each other know what works and what doesn't."

Katniss pulls her feet up onto the couch. "So, has anything not worked for _you_?"

For half a second, I consider repeating something Rye once told me about guys being up for just about anything as long as two conditions are met, but quickly think better of it. Katniss picks at her fingernails some more and I clear my throat.

"Can I, uh, tell you something that _really_ works for me?"

Her brow furrows the tiniest bit, but I don't miss that the corner of her mouth twitches, too, with something like nervous curiosity.

“Okay.”

Capturing her hand again, I tug it away from her teeth and take my time in kissing each of her fingers. "When we're making out and you hold my hands or pull my hair.” She makes a face and I shrug, ears growing warm. “I like it when you get . . . bossy.”

This time, Katniss scowls outright, mumbling something vaguely accusatory. I laugh.

"I said I _like_ it."

Her mouth twists again. Reaching down to lace our fingers, I scoot in until we're wedged on the sofa, hip to hip.

"Do you, uh, remember that afternoon I showed you my sketchbook and there was that one from the tunnels . . .?"

There’s a long silence. Katniss tugs at her lip with her teeth, eventually nodding.

"So, uh," I let out a light laugh. "Guess you probably could tell the effect you had from the moment you kissed me, but . . . that was some kiss." Shrugging, I squeeze her fingers. “It was a while before I got another one, too. Gave me a lot of time to think about it.”

Katniss looks down, clearing her throat. “You, um . . . you thought about it?”

“All the time.” I wait, watching her carefully. “I still do.”

A ghost of a smile hovers at her lips. My thumb tickles over hers. “Anyway, you grabbed my hands then, too. Yanked them out of the way. Must be why I like it so much.” I wait a beat. "Or maybe I just like it when you're not shy about letting me know you like kissing me."

Katniss touches my face, fingertips calloused, but voice soft as a whisper. “You can kiss me now, if you want.”

I lift a hand to trace a wisp of hair behind her ear, thumb brushing her cheekbone. Her eyes don’t leave mine, breath picking up as I lazily stroke her cheek before gently leaning in.

Over the course of six weeks, we’ve discovered so many ways to kiss it almost makes me laugh at what I was convinced I knew after spending a few nights in a cave. Last minute kisses before one of us has to rush out the door, Katniss pressed up against the jamb as urgency lends fire to precious stolen seconds. Soft little nibbles at the back of my neck when I’m absorbed in a sketch and Katniss sneaks up behind me on hunter’s toes, knowing the faint brush of her lips just behind my ear leaves me shivering long after she’s disappeared into the other room. Or best of all, our long sessions making out on her couch in front of the fire, where it’s hard to tell sometimes where her mouth begins and mine ends, tongues mapping every crevice, fingertips memorizing cheeks, collarbones, hips, and waists, drinking our fill of each other until there’s no light left in the room and we’re forced to reluctantly part.

Tonight the brush of her lips against mine brings hints of cocoa, wood smoke, and peppermint, plus the taste of _her_ she always laughs when I start describing and insists is just spit. By the time we break for air, I’m out of breath and already hard enough to know my nuts will hate me by the end of the night. Katniss cards fingers slowly through my hair.

"Sae got it too short." She frowns when she gets to the back, bottom lip protruding just enough to make me want to touch a fingertip to its fat center.

"The other day at breakfast, you pointed a piece of bacon at me and said it was getting so long I was starting to resemble Haymitch," I remind her, warm tingles scattering like spilled grains of sugar across the back of my neck as she finishes running her fingers over my scalp and rests her hand on my chest. "I was trying to listen to instructions."

My thumb continues to trace the width of her bottom lip, back and forth, my eyes never leaving hers. The fire is in its early stages of dying down, the pops and sparks from earlier exchanged for a low, simmering heat that renders the chill in the room delicious, the glow from the coals at the bottom of the grate casting Katniss' irises dark as graphite as she stares up at me in silent invitation.

I lose track of time, the room quiet but for the occasional whisper of hot embers sifting through the grate and the soft smack and suck of lips and tongues. It’s a dance that by now we know well. Shy kisses turning to searching ones. Explorations becoming less timid. Long kisses causing pulses to race until we’re tugging on hair, grasping at shoulders, anything to get closer. Heated kisses growing sloppy, one of us toppling the other over onto the couch.

"Katniss." I grip her arms, the sting of her sucking on my tongue burning a path straight to my cock. “This okay?”

She nods, breathing heavily, and immediately seeks my lips again. But this time before our mouths can lock, I hook a hand under her knee and drag one of her legs across my lap so we're facing.

Our eyes meet, surprise evident on her features as her hands drop to my chest. She’s been on top when we got vaguely horizontal before, if you count leaning over my chest while angling carefully off to the side as she neared my groin, but we’ve never been like _this,_ her legs split on either side of my hips, her zipper hovering so close to mine I can feel the heat emanating from between her legs. I wait, watching her face, hands steadying her with each shift in her hips. Her mouth hovers over mine for an endless second, hair tickling my cheek.

"Katniss?" I ask huskily.

She nods, fingers tracing little circles at the back of my neck that make me shiver, her other hand trailing down my chest. As she leans in, I lift my chin, hands still at her waist and out in plain sight, just in case.

Her mouth closes over mine for one brief, exquisite moment before she pushes me to sit back and begins leaving feather light kisses along the underside of my jaw.

"Oh," I breathe.

Her eyelashes flutter against my neck and I bite my lip, squirming to touch her and trying not to, just in case I accidentally did something stupid, like pull her shirt up again.

"Oh, Katniss. I love it when you do that. You have no _idea_ how much."

She kisses me again, softly, then slowly works her way back under my jaw, hair trailing in a ticklish curtain down the opposite side of my neck. Groaning, I grip her waist, letting my fingers slide up and then back down, memorizing the contour of her ribs, cautious not to stray more than a few inches in any direction. Katniss groans when I circle her waist slowly with both hands, my name forming silently on her lips each time my thumbs brush past the indentation of her belly button. I nudge her chin up with my nose and whisper her name reverently into the hollow of her throat, starting to press a kiss there when all of a sudden she leans forward, body pressing flush to mine so I'm wearing her like a wet apron.

For as many times as I’ve jerked off to something almost identical to this, it’s embarrassing the way I pretty much choke on my tongue. Two parts of my brain react, the rational side briefly questioning if we should slow down, at least a little. But it’s quickly outvoted by the part that knows I'll probably be reliving this moment in the shower every morning for the next week, minus my idiot reaction, maybe the next month, because Katniss Everdeen is sitting practically on top of my cock.

A few seconds go by and she starts to tense. Realizing in a rush she probably wondered why I wasn’t doing anything, I quickly slide a hand to cradle the back of her head, smoothing her hair away and kissing her brow.

"You have no _idea_ the effect you have," I whisper against her skin, tipping her chin towards mine and memorizing the deep gray of her eyes. "You're so gorgeous . . . so strong and stubborn . . . I love you so m--"

She cuts me off with a kiss, body pinning me back against the sofa. Her hips push infinitesimally into mine, the movement rubbing the length of my cock and causing it to give a sharp twitch. Katniss groans, head tipping to one side, and I kiss her deeper, basking in the softness and warmth of being pressed so close, and in the knowledge that like this, she could feel me every bit as well as I could her, that there was no way she could miss me jutting out like a too-long pot handle protruding from a basin of soapy dishwater, that she could undoubtedly feel the exact shape of me pressing into the seam of her trousers, and wasn’t moving. Liked it. _Wanted_ us this close.

Katniss’ arms are tangled around my neck when the kiss eventually ends, mine locked possessively at her waist, a single finger dipping under the edge of her turtleneck to stroke her bare skin.

"You're so beautiful,” I murmur.

Katniss sighs, and this time, when my fingertips feather lightly up her side, there's no mistaking the fractional rock of her hips into mine.

I exhale shakily into her neck, cock howling for more friction. "Katniss--"

"You can touch me," she whispers the next time we break for air, lips ghosting briefly over mine. "If you want."

I nod silently, mouth angling over hers as her hands thread into my hair. For the next few minutes, we don’t try to talk. Corduroy meets denim, bodies shifting in place, what develops never quite practiced enough to be called any sort of _rhythm_. Katniss is kissing the ticklish spot just behind my ear when I start to draw slow circles at her waist, the huff of air on my neck giving her away.

“You like that, hmm?”

She doesn’t answer, just keeps kissing my neck. I chuckle, pushing back against her zipper and slowly circling her navel again. This time she groans.

"You like my hands on you." I wait, lifting gentle fingers to her cheek just in case she's thinking of dodging the question. _“Want_ them on you, as long as our clothes stay on. Real or not real?"

Her face flushes, but she doesn't look away. "Real."

I draw her to me, hands returning to her waist. My mouth settles over hers and Katniss arches her back, pressing our chests flush in a move I can’t help but see as deliberate, and for a minute I lose my train of thought. Still caressing just above her hips, I let my fingertips slowly follow the curve of her ribs and then dance up her spine, tracing the straps of her bra through her turtleneck before drifting down her back.

Katniss presses her forehead to mine, fingers tightening in my shirt as our hips nudge back and forth beneath the blanket. I swallow a groan, hands smoothing the front of her turtleneck, just skimming the underside of her tits with my thumbs before turning around. She makes a strangled sound, breath hot on my lips as I draw my fingers lazily up and down her sides, around her back to trace the length of her spine, and finally, when I’m sure she’s had more than enough time to decide if she wants my hands there or not, spanning her ribcage and slowly edging higher as we pant into each other’s mouths.

She sucks in a breath even though I graze her delicately at first, just thumb and the lightest brush of fingertips, testing with cautious strokes to see if she’s sensitive or ticklish. She’s soft, _so_ soft. I swirl my fingers a second time, and when she doesn’t flinch away, but arches a little into my hand, gently cup her.

Katniss buries her face in my neck, lips finding my pulse point, kissing and sucking just under my jaw as my other hand comes up to mirror the first. They’re so much softer than I had imagined. Warm under my fingers. Not too large and not too small. Perfectly made for _her._ Squeezing gently, I lift them experimentally, testing their weight, enjoying the way they feel resting in my palms. I'd known she had amazing tits, but--

"Katniss . . . you're--" Breaking away, I wait until she meets my eyes. "You're so perfect."

She stares down at me for a long moment, something unreadable passing across her face. Briefly finding her lips, I duck my head, seeking the tiny pebble of her nipple and pressing a kiss to it. Katniss gasps, fingers threading into my hair with such speed I’m sure it’s to yank me away. But they don’t. And after a few seconds, I lick my lips and kiss her again softly. For the next few minutes there’s nothing but the sound of the blanket rustling and Katniss breathing my name as I nudge and kiss, nudge and kiss, flirting with the little nub until it’s poking up through the yarn and there’s a wet spot on her turtleneck.

Katniss shudders when my mouth finally lifts away, fingers caressing my cheek as our tongues meet. This time when I pull away from her lips and duck my head again, she doesn’t protest, hands carding through my hair as she arches towards my mouth. I kiss the other side every bit as diligently, having had no other option but to caress apologies with my free thumb for the unfairness of having to take turns, while assuring the firm little bud that if I had my way, I would do nothing all day but lave attention over the both of them. I spend twice as long on the neglected side, kiss Katniss again, then dip to each tiny peak once more before at last lifting my head.

"I love you." Cupping her cheeks, I give her a quick kiss. "I don't _want_ to stop, but it's getting late."

Katniss straightens her turtleneck. "No, we . . . should."

We untangle, Katniss starting to fold up the blanket as I collect the mugs.

“I’ll do it,” I murmur. “You go take your shower.”

She glances over. “Are you sure?”

I lean down and kiss her, just once, tenderly.

“Go.”

Trying to hear her footsteps on the stairs is pretty much pointless, but it's harder to miss the sound of the pipes humming when the shower is cranked on. I fidget as a minute turns to two, weighing my options. And then blow out a breath, sink back onto the couch, and unfasten the button on my trousers.

The moment my fingers curl around my cock, I know this isn't going to take long, that I’ll last maybe half a minute if I’m lucky after the way she was squirming in my lap all night. I let my eyes fall closed, lips puckered as the Katniss in my mind brings her nipple to my mouth, this time hidden only by the thin lace of the nightgown in her closet.

 _“Peeta,”_ she whispers, just like before, my name falling from her lips over and over again, so airy it could float away, the same trembling fingertips that yanked the shackles into place stroking their approval into my hair as I suckle her wetly.

I lift my eyes to hers, drinking in the way she’s become fixated on my mouth as I slowly release the first bud and capture its virgin twin in a long kiss. Katniss shudders, face momentarily going slack. And then, before I have time to blink, she lowers the straps and draws my lips back to her bare skin, her soft little fingers wrapping around my cock and slowly testing the length of it.

 _Katniss_ , I croon as my tongue swirls the delicate point like the most decadent candy glazed atop a sugary dessert, spinning hypnotically as I thrust through the small fist she’s made, my reward for popping through the glossy swipe of her thumb over the sensitive, flushed head, a stolen droplet that’s quickly replenished as my shaft grows longer to please her.

A smirk forms at the corner of her mouth. I whine and buck my hips faster, demanding her hand, the teasing smears her thumb now doles out every few pumps enough to make me lose my mind. I switch sides again, tongue moving feverishly around her nipple, and gaze up into her dark slate eyes, meeting her blow for blow as the pronounced angle of my shaft straining towards her finally makes her wrist start to tire. Her fingers tighten in my hair as I suck harder, pulling almost to the point of pain.

My nuts tighten, a familiar tingling snaking up my cock, and I moan, wanting more than anything to last for her, to show her when we finally do _that_ I won’t embarrass myself like Rye and Bannock once assured me all virgins do, but it takes barely three more pumps, squeezes where I’m fighting her will, gritting my teeth and straining from the effort not to come, and my cock blows all over us both with the pressurized power of a geyser.

 _Fuck._ My mouth falls open as I start to come, a warm stream of seed wetting my stomach, her name chanted silently over and over in time with the pulses dribbling over my hand until I'm fully spent.

"Katniss," I whisper, head falling back. But the room is dark and quiet, the shower still on upstairs, the mess on my stomach already beginning to cool. Digging out a handkerchief, I quickly clean up.

The autumn air is chilly as I step out onto the porch, the wind carrying with it the smell of impending rain. Buttercup mews softly from just below the swing. Some evenings it’s hard to coax him inside, as if he believes _she_ might still be somewhere out there in the night. Others he seems to know, pauses only briefly at the closed door at the top of the stairs before continuing down the hall to Katniss’ room.

Clucking my tongue, I open the door wider. He mews again, eyes gleaming like discs of burnished metal in the moonlight, and darts past my legs, bottlebrush tail a streak of gold in the darkness as he disappears up the stairs.

 

* * *

 

Part 2 of 4

Notes: As usual, I don’t own The Hunger Games! I also don’t own two articles on PTSD and survivor’s guilt, one written by K. Nader, the other by Y. Daneli, a few parts of which were quoted directly in the group therapy section in the middle of the fic

Comments are like primroses that return every spring. Would love to hear what you thought :).


	10. Costly

_A/N-Chapter contains descriptions of torture and the mention of rape, mostly contained to the two Capitol timeline sections._

 

* * *

 

_“It isn’t as if I haven’t kept things from you in the past.”_

 

* * *

 

There are moments where it’s impossible to decide which face of Katniss Everdeen I love the most. There’s this scowl she gets when she first wakes up, a tiny crease that starts to form between her eyebrows purely from muscle memory even before her lashes start to flutter. It’s so cute I’m always tempted to kiss her awake if not for the knowledge that grumpy Katnisses are rarely in the mood for cuddling. Then there’s the expression she wears coming back from the woods, one that’s both scary and a little hot, the dirt invariably smudged across one cheek matching the confidence of her stride as she marches around back to begin skinning and cleaning her kills. And there’s just something about the way she snorts right before swatting my butt with a dishtowel that never fails to get a rise out of me, in more ways than one, our evenings cleaning up after supper usually ending with tickle fights and soap suds sloshed across the floor, followed by a sloppy make out session on the kitchen counter.

But I think my favorite might be this: the way she looks after supper as amber firelight frames her cheekbones, her fingers flicking absently at a stray wisp of hair that’s come loose from the short braid she stubbornly struggles every morning to make, eyes sharp as flint shards focused on the page in her book.

Katniss Everdeen has never understood the effect she has. A raven-haired girl who sang to the mockingjays. The small shadow trailing in her father’s footsteps as I tried to peek at her from behind my work counter. The tribute who captured Panem’s attention with a wreath of flowers, a handful of berries, and an arrow released like a ray of hope into the sky.

And tonight, wrapped in a well-worn quilt with a bright starburst pattern and sitting before a crackling fire that I built for her as she chopped vegetables for a stew, she makes my chest flutter in a different way, one that warms me from the inside out every time she meets my eyes over the top of her book. Because we may have started things off all wrong, and between our fake engagement and everything that happened during the course of the war, I know I hurt her at least as many times as she hurt me. But even if it took us a while to get here, we’re finally together. And it’s _real._

Beside me, Haymitch coughs. “Still your move, boy.”

“What . . . oh, sorry.”

I blink down at the antique wooden chessboard, mind slowly coming back into focus. In the next chair with her feet tucked in my lap, Katniss bites her lip to hide a smirk and flips to the next page in her book.

Hand halfway to a rook, I quickly lower it when beneath our shared blanket, her toes begin to squirm, the side of one foot lightly grazing my crotch. I clear my throat, reaching down with the intent to make her move, but then she stretches, arching so that the sole of her foot brushes my cock, and my resolve falters. Under the cover of the quilt, my hips give a fractional push, seeking her again.

“Need me to pick one of ‘em for you?” Using the tines of his fork to scrape up the last sugary crumbs from a plate stained a dark, murderous red from the cherry pie we’d had with dinner, Haymitch raises an eyebrow.

“No, thanks,” I mumble, toying with one of my captured pieces. Haymitch’s chess set had been his great-grandfather’s, from before the Dark Days, carved from oak and walnut. It’s a work of art. The taller pieces stand almost three inches high, the pawns about the size of a plump mushroom. I stare at the one closest to my hand. Stained a dusky cinnamon brown, its rounded tip and fat circular base did nothing to keep my mind from wandering to--

“Boy?”

“Right, sorry.” Knocking over the pawn, I fumble to pick it up and hastily use it to capture his bishop.

“Interesting move.”

Haymitch sets the plate down and wipes his mouth. I don’t respond. He’s the better chess player, and both of us know it, although on a less distracted night I can usually hold my own. I glance over at Katniss, who’s wearing a dark blue sweater I’ve told her I especially like and corduroy pants that hug her hips. The sweater is soft as rabbit’s fur and clings to her body in all the right places, something that’s become especially interesting to me now that my hands are allowed to--

“Check.”

I frown at the space where my knight used to be and even Katniss pulls her feet from my lap, and stands to take our plates to the other room, clearly sensing the game would soon be over.

Haymitch starts in on the last slice of pie as I study the board, the two of us quietly exchanging moves until at last I lose my queen in a fork and concede defeat.

Katniss appears in the doorway with her arms crossed. Our eyes meet and she smirks, something private and wonderful dancing in the depths of her pupils as I silently mouth, _I love you._ Her expression softens, and she’s just starting to step forward when Haymitch drops his plate on the table loudly enough to send Buttercup shooting up the staircase in a streak of yellow fur.

“Walk back with me, will you, boy?”

“Uh . . . sure.” I chance another look at Katniss, who is frowning openly. “Why?”

Haymitch just grunts. “Few things you and I need to talk about.”

Brow still furrowed, Katniss catches my arm as I’m getting my coat, but I just shake my head and bend down to peck a kiss to her lips, pretty sure I already know what this is going to be about.

“Sit,” Haymitch orders without preamble once we arrive at the oversized wooden chairs out on his porch. I do as instructed, barely resisting the urge to roll my eyes, part of me trying also not to examine whether he’d be attempting to act any nicer about the lecture I suspected I was in for if Katniss were here.

A barn owl hoots somewhere off in the distance as I shift around, trying to get comfortable with my leg. Haymitch digs a bottle from his coat pocket and takes a drink, swirling the amber liquid in lazy circles as I wait for him to start in on me.

“Things seem to be getting pretty serious between you and the girl.”

I stare out at the dark silhouette cast by row after row of sentinel pines and spruce against the night sky, not missing that our former mentor hadn’t actually _asked_ a question, and not about to slip up by answering one.

After a minute, Haymitch grunts. “You two still planning on goin’ up to the lake tomorrow?”

I give a noncommittal shrug.

“Interesting response.” He rubs the end of his nose. “There anything _else_ you’re planning on doing while you’re up there?”

Seething, I dig my fingers into the arms of the chair, annoyed at what he was _really_ getting at. Why he’d wanted to talk just to me instead of the two of us together. Like what had happened last week had been solely my decision, and was now something _I_ would need to atone for. As if there was _any_ scenario where I would pressure Katniss into doing something she didn’t want to, something likely to get me shoved straight into the lake just for trying. And most insultingly of all, like Haymitch had decided it was now _his_ job to look out for her, instead of mine, reviving their little club for two where I was at best left out, and at worst treated like some sort of freak they both claimed to care about yet couldn’t wait to get away from.

I swallow and trace the faint scar Katniss left on my hand, the dark, ugly feeling Dr. Aurelius had spent the better part of the past two weeks working to convince me was unjustified creeping back.

When I don’t respond, Haymitch shakes his head. “I’ll take that as answer enough.”

I snatch a broken twig off the porch railing, snapping it in half and hurling the fragments out into the grass.

“I’m not talking to you about this. You’re not my fucking dad.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, some part of me regrets them. But that part is howled down by the part that’s fucking sick of knowing that of the two of us, I might be the one whose company he prefers, the one he’d rather have stop in on him in the mornings at breakfast to make sure he hasn’t filleted his liver in the night rolling over on his knife, and definitely the one he wants providing his baked goods, but I’ll never be the one he feels he needs to look out for or the one he needs to protect, that when it comes to our drunk of a mentor, I’ll always matter just a little less.

“Huh.”

Swirling his white liquor, Haymitch stares up at the sky. I dig the toe of my boot into a knot in the nearest post, reminded that this used to be what we did, the two of us, after supper when the weather wasn’t too bad. Sit out on his porch together on cool autumn nights and watch the pastel streaks of twilight fade to a vast somber canvas riddled with stars. A chessboard set out between us serving as a substitute for conversation as he nursed a bottle and I tried desperately to keep from peeking over at the warm light and gay laughter coming from the Everdeens.

“So, your dad talk to you?”

I shrug, messing with the sleeve of my coat.

He takes another drink, the noxious smell of white liquor wafting from the open bottle. “You got any questions?”

I shake my head.

“None at all, huh?” Haymitch snorts, and even though his tone doesn’t change, I don’t have to look up to know he’s mocking me.  “This your first time with a girl?”

Jaw set, I concentrate on glaring a hole in the floorboards. “Are we through here?”

“Not even close.” Corking the bottle, he stretches out in the chair and props one foot on the railing. “Got a phone call from _Dr. Aurelius_ this morning.”

I roll my eyes, unable to help it this time. On the rare occasions Haymitch calls him by name, it always sounds like Katniss’ cat coughing up a hairball, like he’s constantly trying to remind us all he’s a head shrink from the Capitol, and therefore can’t be trusted. “And?”

“And it seems Sae was a little concerned last week when she came by Sweetheart’s to pick up the laundry and found you two pawing each other on the couch like a couple of foxes in heat.”

“We weren’t--” I start, but just as quickly fall silent when Haymitch turns my way, face growing hot despite the temperature. “We were just . . . you know, kissing.”

Haymitch grunts. “According to Sae, she walked in while Sweetheart was sprawled out on top of you. Said you had your hand _way_ up her shirt, too.” He levels a look in my direction. “Any of that sound familiar?”

I trace the wood grain of the porch chair, not answering.

“But that’s all beside the point now. Your doc says you get a choice. Have this little chat with him, or have it with me.”

“This is fucking stupid,” I snap, head thumping against the chair.

Haymitch just snorts and takes another drink, saluting me irreverently with the bottle. And then it occurs to me.

“What about Katniss?” I ask sharply, concern rising at the thought of Haymitch, or worse, Dr. Aurelius, who most days she barely trusted, springing this on her, at how easy it would be for her to regress back to the girl I’d first come home to from the Capitol, the one with matted hair and wild eyes who for months had refused to talk to anyone at all.

“Sweetheart’s been ducking her mother’s calls for weeks, so Sae’s planning to stop by early tomorrow before breakfast.” Haymitch makes a face. “Would suggest making plans to bake something for the work crew, give them time to talk. Personally, I like those little wheat--”

“That’s fucking great,” I mumble to shut him up, not really seeing a better option. Things with her and Mrs. Everdeen were still tense. Sae, she’d always respected, had grown even closer to in recent months, even if it was hard to picture Katniss actually being comfortable enough to go to her if she had questions about _this_ particular topic.

“So, what’ll it be, boy?”

I shake my head, lip curling. “Do we really have to have this dumb conversation?”

Barking out a laugh, he uncorks the bottle and takes another drink. “For someone who didn’t give a shit about having his dick broadcasted all over Panem, you’re getting pretty worked up about it.”

Letting my head fall back, I blow out a breath. “I’m not _worked up_ about anything. I just want to go home and check on Katniss. And I don’t need your help. So say whatever the fuck you were planning on saying and let’s get this over with already.”

For a minute, Haymitch is silent, and there’s nothing but the sound of the wind stirring fallen leaves. Then he nods off towards the trees.

“Had a girl, too, you know, when I was ‘bout your age.” He grunts, seeming to debate whether or not to go on. “That first time she snuck me over when her Ma was out visiting a friend, I could’ve flown the whole way there, then lit the Seam on fire with how red my face was once she figured out I didn’t have the first clue what to do with a girl once our clothes started coming off.”

I don’t answer, an uneasy feeling forming in my stomach.

“But you had two older brothers, so maybe you do know what you’re doing,” he finishes dryly, pushing out of his chair and getting up to go inside. “Your doc will talk to you about the specifics, but there’s an injection he’s going to order for the girl that prevents pregnancy for so many months. You’ll have to wrap it up until then.”

Reaching into his coat, he pulls out a folded foil strip of Capitol-made condoms and tosses them in my lap. I grimace, picturing Katniss discovering them, and rub my forehead.

“Um--”

“Don’t fuck around with using those either. The last thing the two of you need right now is a baby.”

I frown. “Haymitch--”

“Treat the girl with respect.” He pockets the bottle, ignoring me. “I know you love her. Don’t ever let anything get in the way of that.”

Shoving the condoms in my pocket, I hunch forward in the chair. _“Haymitch.”_

He turns, almost to the door, and I run a reluctant hand through my hair.

“Wait.”

* * *

Most of the lights are out in the Victor’s Village by the time I ease open the door and slip inside, and it’s late enough that I’m not really expecting Katniss to still be up, but she’s there waiting for me, sitting at the long kitchen table with a pot of tea, Buttercup curled in one of the empty chairs nearby. But what’s most surprising are the letters strewn across the ivy green tablecloth like the first flakes of snow to dot the forest floor. Her mail had been piling up on the mantle for months, the stack growing weekly as letters began to arrive from all over Panem until it seemed in danger of tipping over and landing in the hearth, at which point Sae dumped the whole mess in a box and moved it to the large desk in the study where if nothing else it could collect dust out of sight.

“Hey.” Kissing Katniss lightly, I slide an arm across the back of her chair. “Finally going through all your mail?”

She fingers the lip of the top envelope, expression indiscernible. It’s been opened, the frayed edge allowing a glimpse of the crisp white Capitol paper inside, something that any other day might have caused the back of my neck to prickle if I couldn’t already see my own handwriting staring up at me.

Katniss picks at the letter, voice light like she’s balanced delicately on an uncertain branch. “I never knew you wrote me.”

Toying with a strand of her hair, I shrug. “Didn’t at first. Wasn’t allowed sharp objects, and then they wouldn’t tell me where you were until it was almost time for you to come back here.”

I glance up, but her eyes flit to the fire, cheeks warming. Turning her fingers over so I can trace hearts along the lines of her palm, I chuckle.

“Dr. Aurelius limited me to one a week. I think there were seven, in all.”

“Oh.”

It’s one of her favorite responses, enough to count as actually having said something while relinquishing as few syllables as possible. As if guessing the direction of my thoughts, Katniss chews her lip, and I reach up to smooth a strand of hair behind her ear.

“How many of them have you opened?”

“Just one.”

“Mmm.” I rub my thumb across the plump curve of her bottom lip, watching her expression slowly darken.

And then she’s in my chair, lean legs sliding on either side of mine, her arms snaking possessively around my neck as our mouths seal.

Of all the sides of Katniss Everdeen I love, there’s always been something about having her in my lap when we kiss that drives me absolutely wild, and tonight is no exception. Her fingers weave into my hair and tear at the collar of my shirt, the hunger in her quiet pants as she drags my head to one side to get her tongue into my mouth sending all the blood in my body thundering south. Groaning, I pull her flush against my chest, hands memorizing the contours of her hips, gliding over the length of her legs and smoothing upward to the slender circle of her waist--

Fully in my lap, Katniss immediately encircles my neck again, sighing into my mouth as my hands slowly map her body, the kiss intensifying as my thumbs graze the soft swell of her tits. She makes a little sound in the back of her throat, arching into my palms as she sucks languidly on my tongue. I’ve gotten so hard it’s not even funny, cock jumping up to silently beat time against the fly of my trousers as she rubs up against me, and as good as it feels, it’s taking all my concentration to keep my head on straight and not blow my load in front of her.

Katniss says my name, voice low and smoky as a late fall morning. Wrapping an arm snugly around her waist, I press my lips to the soft hollow of her throat and pump my hips in a steady rhythm, gently kissing as I move. Her breath catches, her fingers digging into the flannel of my shirt as I push into the seam of her pants, and as I watch her long, dark eyelashes flutter closed, I find myself questioning _everything_ about what we were doing thanks to the world’s most awkward conversation with Haymitch. If she was turned on. Wet. If I was hitting the right spot . . . spots? If making out with me ever left her horny and in need of relief and she sometimes needed to get herself off later because of it, or if my efforts amounted to a bunch of fumbling around.

She shifts in my lap, the soft heat of her mouth dipping below my jaw.

“Ugh.” I let my head fall back, groaning as Katniss’ lips suck a wet path down my throat. “Kat, that feels . . . ungh, that’s so good.”

Her fingernails scratch at the nape of my neck, the slight tingle soothed as her mouth kisses its way up to form a seal over mine. My hands wander north again, settling over her breasts. Katniss sighs, arching into my fingers as I gently pull her nipples through her sweater. I groan as her hips begin to rotate in time with the light pressure of my fingertips. This has become something of a game of ours as well. For as many times as I’ve slipped my hands under her shirt and into her bra, she’s adorably shy when it comes to touching my cock. She hasn’t done it yet, but she’s curious, I can tell, by the way she keeps letting her foot accidentally glance my shaft while it’s resting in my lap. Or reaches over to get the soap so her backside brushes my front while we’re doing the dishes. And then waits until she has me alone and the lights have been turned down to straddle me and suck on my tongue while I play with her tits for what feels like hours, our bodies rubbing together until I’m standing up like a ship’s mast, all but begging her to raise and lower my sails until she fires off the cannon.

Nuzzling my way under her jaw, I let my lips brush the soft skin of her neck, memorizing the feel and taste of her pulse fluttering madly under my touch. Katniss shudders, fingers digging into my shoulders as I slowly kiss my way up towards the sensitive crevice just behind her ear. It’s one of her many ticklish spots, a smooth valley of spared skin between two clawed fingers of red where the burns lick up her neck, and one of my favorite places to kiss.

Katniss shivers, squirming when my breath grazes her hairline. I take my time, hands steady at her waist as she sways gently in my lap. I lift my head when she whispers my name, relishing the sensation of her fingers ruffling lightly through my hair.

“Katniss,” I murmur, reaching the edge of one of the burns and gently kissing up her throat. She goes still, not responding when I move her hair aside to nibble under her jaw. “You’re so beautiful. I love you.”

But she ducks her head, brow furrowing. I release her when she presses on my chest to get up, studying her face as she frowns and starts to straighten her clothes.

“You okay?”

She looks away, shoulders hunched. I tuck back a strand of her hair, leaning forward to kiss the tip of her nose.

Katniss chews her lip. “Fine.”

The silence stretches.

I clear my throat. “Did I do something to--”

“No.” She blows out a breath. “Forget about it. Um . . . what did Haymitch want?”

“Oh, uh.” Rubbing my forehead, I gesture reluctantly. “To talk about this. You know . . . us.”

Her eyes widen in understanding and alarm. I let out a short bark of laughter.

“Yeah.”

The crease in Katniss’ brow deepens as she turns, staring into the fire for what feels like an eternity. “Because of last week, you mean, with Sae? She _told_ him?”

I nod. She huffs and picks at the edge of her thumbnail. I let my arms fall around her so they rest on the table, not _exactly_ caging her in, but not making it any easier for her to run off, either. After a beat, she leans against my chest and I kiss her temple, lips lingering against her skin.

“Talk to me, Kat.”

Katniss sighs, toying with the buttons on my shirt. I run my hands slowly up her arms, waiting as another minute passes.

“You know you can tell me anything,” I whisper, trailing kisses along her hairline. _“Always,_ remember?”

“You _say_ that,” she mumbles.

“Because it’s true.”

Her mouth turns down at the corners, and she picks at the same button for so long I’m sure she’s going to pull it off when at last, she releases it. “It’s nothing.”

“Katniss,” I tease in a singsong, tracing her face.

She scowls, attacking her nails with renewed vigor. “I thought . . . I thought it would get easier.”

 _“What_ would get easier?” I murmur, gently tugging her hand away from her mouth.

She blinks and tries to climb out of my lap, but this time I cage her in. Frowning, she pushes on my chest.

“Dr. Aurelius says I don’t have to talk about this. Not until I’m ready.”

“This has been eating you up for weeks.” Curling my arms around her in a hug too tight to escape, I kiss the tip of her nose. “So, spill it, Everdeen. What would get easier?”

“Um, I don’t know.”

Her answer comes out raspy, a tear tracing down the edge of her cheek, and I’m instantly sorry for having pushed. I kiss the tear away, but a second one quickly follows.

“Taking a bath.” The words are so small, I barely hear her.

I tip up her chin. “Kat--”

But she pulls away, swallowing shakily. “Um . . . getting dressed.”

A sick feeling curls in my stomach as understanding starts to form, and I drag Katniss into my arms, hugging her fiercely.

Her voice quivers. “I hate walking past the mirror. I hate . . . looking at myself.” There’s a pause, her breathing growing ragged. “And when I think about you seeing what I look like now--”

She tries to wipe her eyes, but can’t because my hands are in the way, cupping her cheeks, smoothing away her tears as I lean in to kiss the tip of her nose, her eyelashes, the little crease that starts to form at her brow, and finally the freckle dotting the edge of her lip.

"You're _beautiful,"_ I tell her vehemently. “So fucking beautiful.”

Katniss bites her lip, blinking away fresh tears. I frown, trying to tilt her face towards mine, but she shakes her head, pushing out of my lap with such force I hit the back of the chair with a thump and she nearly falls in her scramble for the door.

"Kat,” I say softly, starting to tell her that I loved her, that her skin would never fucking matter to me any more than one of us being from town and the other from the Seam, that I had only ever wanted _her_ from the first time my father pointed out her two pretty little braids on the first day of school, but before I have time to form the words, she's already halfway up the stairs.

* * *

There are moments where time passes in long silences so painful the mundane sounds that interrupt them are elevated to desperate beacons of hope. A toilet flushing. The tap of a toothbrush on the side of the sink. A faint creak when a medicine cabinet is opened. The light switch flicking off.

And finally, after half an hour, Katniss Everdeen pads into the bedroom in thick woolen socks we both know she steals from my drawer and a pair of flannel pajamas, her eyes red from crying, only to draw back in surprise when she sees me sitting half-naked on her bed.

Laughing softly, I shake my head. "That bad, huh?"

At this, she scowls. "I've seen--"

"I know you have," I say quietly, leaning forward to catch her hand. "But I think there's something you may have forgotten."

She lets me tug her closer until she's standing between my legs. "Hmm?" she whispers hoarsely.

The worst of her burns are on her shoulders and back, places it's easier to hide. From my positioning, the medics assumed what to this day I will never doubt, that I had been facing the barricades when the final round of bombs went off, up until my last seconds of consciousness still trying to get to _her_.

Still, my arms look worse than my dad’s after forty years at the ovens, my hands marginally better only because the burn unit spent so damn long working to repair them. If Rye were still here, he would have been the first to let me know my forehead is ugly as a monkey’s ass, but since no matter which way I try to wet and comb it, my hair ends up flopping in my eyes, it doesn't seem like such a big deal.

I reach for Katniss’ free hand and move it to one of the raised scars that snake across my chest.

"That I've loved you since I was five years old." Lifting her fingers, I move them to a poorly stitched knife wound from my weeks in the Capitol. "And that we're the same."

She closes her eyes, chin beginning to quiver as she shakes her head. "You . . . you don't--"

I lift a finger to tuck an escaping strand of hair behind her ear. _"What_ don't I understand, sweetheart?"

Most of the time, she throws a pillow at me for daring to call her that. But once in a while, if I choose just the right moment and just the right tone, she grudgingly allows it, the twitch at the left corner of her mouth betraying that part of her might secretly even like it. But tonight, she squirms in her socks, posture deflating.

"I'm cold,” she says softly. “Can I get under the covers?"

Studying her face, I stand up so she can pull back the comforter. "Let me get ready for bed, and then we can talk some more."

Her brow furrows, but she says nothing. Still picking at her nails when I emerge from the bathroom a few minutes later and turn to drape my pants over a chair, she takes a breath.

"It never bothered you."

"What didn't?" Pulling back my side of the covers, I unstrap my leg and grab the tube of pain cream from the nightstand.

My back is to her, but I still hear her little huff.

"If I saw you. If all of _Panem_ saw you." She flops against the pillows. "You know, when I was giving you that damn bath."

I grunt, tempted to laugh at both her and Haymitch calling me on my shit on the same night if not for the certainty Katniss wouldn't find it half as funny as I would.

"And?"

She scowls again, the lines in her forehead deepening as she stares at the fire. "And . . . it isn't that easy for me."

"I know." Taking her hand, I gently trace the line of the scars that spiderweb across her skin. "And I'm not trying to make light of it. But there's something you're forgetting, too."

Katniss bites her lip, watching as I toy with her fingers, but not answering. I swallow.

"You have no idea, the effect you have, just like you've never understood how beautiful you are." I rotate her hand, tracing our initials into her palm. "But the most important reasons you're beautiful to me have never had anything to do with your eyes, or your smile, or the way they dolled you up in the Capitol. You protect where others stand aside. You're strong where they’re afraid. And when you love someone, you love them so deeply. You've always been special, Katniss, so special even the birds could hear something in the voice of a little girl."

She looks away, blinking back tears. I gently trace them from her cheeks.

"We both have scars." I tip her chin up with the pressure of my thumb. "They only make me love you more . . . because we _survived_ together."

Katniss stares at me, watching as I open the nightstand and pull out the small cloth pouch that had arrived from the Capitol only two days before.

"What's this?" she asks cautiously when I set it in her hands.

My mouth goes dry and I’m suddenly nervous she’s going to be pissed, and knowing maybe I deserved it.

"Something you kept safe when we weren't even really together anymore."

I catch her wary look and quickly hedge.

"--and . . . something I wanted to give to you again one day when the time was right. Like this."

The furrow in her brow only deepening, Katniss starts to say something, but stops, licking her lips. And finally unfolds the dark blue cloth wrapping, allowing a thin but sturdy silver chain to puddle in her hand.

The expression drains from her face when she sees the pearl, something I can't quite read as shock or disbelief growing in her eyes as she gingerly lifts the necklace and watches the dark pewter orb sway soundlessly between her outstretched fingertips.

I swallow, trying to read every nuance of her reaction as her breathing picks up speed, the lips I'd kissed hundreds, _thousands_ of times in front of the fire downstairs forming words absent any sound.

"Is . . . is this--"

“Yes,” I answer softly. “The same one.”

Clouded gray eyes lift to mine, and although she doesn’t say anything, I don’t miss the hint of a frown starting to form.

"Haymitch gave it to me a few months ago," I hurriedly explain, "and I had it sent to a jeweler Effie knows in the Capitol."

Katniss still says nothing, staring down at the pearl dangling on its delicate chain.

Shrugging, I rub the back of my neck. "I was going to give it to you tomorrow, at the lake, but--"

Katniss is silent for a long time. "Haymitch had it?"

"He, uh, said the doctors found it in your pocket at the hospital and gave it to him . . .  he said it just slipped his mind until he came across the handkerchief tucked in his jacket one day. He figured that because I had given it to you before, it would be better if he let me be the one to--"

Trailing off when she turns the pearl over slowly in her palm, I study her face, then take a breath. "You’re mad at me. For not giving it to you sooner."

She shrugs, but I see the answer in her eyes. For a moment, we just sit there.  And even though part of me gets it, has maybe known all along that I should have told Haymitch to shove his advice about waiting for the right time and just returned it to her in a sweat-stained handkerchief, there’s another part that feels a little put out. Because misguided or not, I hadn’t been _trying_ to hurt her, and more than anything, her reaction smarts of yet another rejection.

Shaking my head, I switch off the lamp. Katniss says nothing, sitting there in the dark and staring down at the pearl like I’m not even there.

"I'm sorry you don’t like it. I should have given it back to you right away. I just wanted it to be special."

The fire slowly dies down, flickers of flax, caramel and gold warming the walls as I watch the curtains dance to brisk October gusts. Beside me, Katniss shifts.

"I do." She awkwardly clears her throat. "Like it.”

But she’s always been a hopeless liar. I refuse to respond, and she lets out a frustrated little huff. Giving in, I grudgingly sit back up.

Katniss chews her lip, avoiding my eyes as I move her hair over one shoulder. With gentle hands, I slip the pearl around her neck, carefully fastening the catch and pressing a kiss to the back of her head once I'm done. Her fingers ghost over the crevice between her collarbones where the pearl seems to glow in the shadows of firelight.

She burrows beneath the covers, her hair tumbling over the pillow between us, wild and lustrous. I tuck an arm around her waist, noting that at her throat, the length of chain twists silently as a silver serpent, glinting in the firelight as she toys with the pearl where I can't see.

"Are we okay?" I whisper, tracing a strand of her hair and watching the necklace slide back and forth.

Katniss goes still.

"Fine."

I swallow, waiting a beat before pressing a soft kiss to the nape of her neck, just above where the cool metal meets her skin. "Okay. I love you."

She doesn’t move. I wait, seconds ticking by, an unsettling feeling forming in my gut the moment I recognize exactly what it is I’m waiting _for._ Katniss shifts, sinking deeper under the covers, and for the first time, I feel the niggling burn of resentment. Her muscles relax. And as I stare at the back of her head, listening to the sound of her breathing as all traces of light bleed from the room, I’m left questioning if it’s really the first time I’ve felt that way at all.

 

* * *

 

It’s just past four in the afternoon when a contingent of guards escorts us through a service entrance into the Training Center. We ride up an unmarked elevator close to the kitchen, getting out on the eleventh floor. I say nothing as we enter the dining room, silently pacing while Dr. Aurelius quietly instructs the two Avoxes to wait outside. I don’t recognize either of them, not that I’d really expected to, but everything else about the lavish room with its grand table and sleek chairs is all but identical to the one on the next floor up, something that makes my skin crawl and at the same time, makes me long terribly for Katniss.

Dr. Lucius glances at us, then excuses himself and steps out. I sigh, rubbing my face as Dr. Aurelius seals the door behind him.

“How are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. It’s at least the twelfth time he’s asked since we left the hospital. Reaching the far end of the long table, I stare out the window at the high clouds streaking the late afternoon sky. “Nervous.”

Dr. Aurelius nods. “Would it help to sit for a moment and try some breathing exercises?”

I scrub both hands through my hair, but after a beat, reluctantly walk over to the chair next to his. He’s always insisting we try things like purposeful breathing and guided imagery to relax and calm the mind, or these stretching exercises while music with no obvious tune or rhythm plays in the background. There are moments where I’m convinced telling my body to feel calm while imagining flowing streams and peaceful meadows is just another load of useless Capitol bullshit, that for as many times as I practice them, they don’t seem to do anything to help stop an episode when I can feel one coming on. There are others where they aren’t so bad, where I can feel whatever tension I started the day with draining from my arms and legs, maybe not as effectively as if they’d given me morphling, but better than if I’d done nothing at all.

“I’m nervous I’m going to fuck it all up,” I mumble a few minutes later when voices out in the hallway finally break my concentration. “That I’ll freak out and have an episode. And he’ll just--”

When I don’t finish, Dr. Aurelius inclines his head. “Peeta, do you recall what we discussed regarding Dr. Gai’s responses to anything you may do or say in this meeting?”

I grunt, rubbing the scar from Katniss’ teeth.

_“Yes.”_

We’d been over it. All of it. Dr. Aurelius had been abundantly clear that the purpose of today’s visit was to allow me to say whatever I felt I needed to the man who’d engineered my torture. And that while I could _ask_ questions, I shouldn’t hold out any hope of sincere answers. That Dr. Gai would likely ignore everything I said and possibly _me_ entirely, and in the event he did respond to something, would probably only do so with the intent to manipulate me in some way.

“I just don’t want him to see me that way--freaking out and babbling about Katniss being a mutt--and give him the satisfaction of knowing he turned me into--”

Dr. Aurelius waits for me to go on, expression impassive. “Turned you into--?”

I glare, exasperated, because he knows what I’m getting at, is maybe the one person involved in all of this who doesn’t need me to spell out how humiliating it would be to fall apart in front of him, to let him see, even after all this time, that he still held so much power over me, and maybe always would.

“A freak,” I mutter.

Dr. Aurelius tilts his head, studying me. “Is that how you see yourself?”

I shrug. Footsteps approach, and my stomach lurches as the door swings open, but it’s just Dr. Lucius. He adjusts his fancy cufflinks and straightens his tie while I glare.

“I think he would see a young man successfully managing post-traumatic flashbacks,” Dr. Aurelius continues gently, conveniently ignoring everything from the rice sack I’d pulverized practically to dust on the way here to the way I’d all but vaulted out of my chair at the sound of the door handle rotating. “Someone who’s managed to overcome what no other hijacking victim has to date. And I think it would quickly become apparent to him that his efforts had been a spectacular failure.”

I poke at the edge of the table, throat growing tight. Dr. Lucius chooses that moment to interrupt.

“They said they’re finishing up.” He fills a glass of water from the frosty pitcher that’s been set out and raises an eyebrow, but I shake my head.

“Finishing up with what?” I ask cautiously.

“Questioning.”

I see Dr. Aurelius shift, an unspoken communication passing between them. I turn to stare out the window, a queasy feeling forming in my stomach.

"Questioning?" I echo, the word acidic as bile. Shrouded in the shiny cloak of the venom, a memory tugs, a steel-toed boot cracking bone, manacles gnashing like teeth through shredded ribbons of flesh.

"Yes."

"About what?" I don’t look at either of them, trying to forget the metallic taste of blood on wet slate. The brightness of stars bursting in radiant horror as blows splatter like raindrops. The screams that seem to pulse off dark walls _._

“They didn’t say.” Dr. Lucius smooths his perfectly tailored coat. “How are you doing?”

Kind of twitchy, I pull out the rice sack and toss it from hand to hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dr. Aurelius frown, and I know he wants to remind me again that it’s okay, even now, to decide _not_ to see him, something one of them has gently repeated every time I couldn’t sleep, insisted I wasn’t hungry, had an episode, or freaked the fuck out over absolutely nothing like this morning at breakfast when I lost it with Felix for knocking over the orange juice.

“A little off.” I let the grains spill slowly between my fingers. “Had some trouble sleeping last night.”

Dr. Aurelius nods. “Nightmares?”

I close my eyes, but not fast enough. A lip curls, a name whispered just as I begin to scream--

“Peeta?”

Sucking in a sharp breath, I rub my face, unsure how long we’d been sitting there. “You could say that.”

"Would a list help?” Dr. Aurelius asks gently, somehow seeming to know, as he always does, when places and events are starting to blur in my mind.

Letting my head thump against the chair, I slowly rotate one of the heavy crystal water glasses set out in the center of the table. "My name is Peeta Mellark. I'm from District Twelve. Katniss Everdeen and I were sent to the Hunger Games. Twice. She--"

I open and close my mouth, thinking of the letter I’d been struggling all week to write, the fourth since Dr. Aurelius had first started allowing me to send them back to Twelve, what to say becoming progressively more difficult with each week that Katniss ignored me.

"What things you know right _now_ to be true." Dr. Aurelius' voice is patient, as if he can guess the direction of my thoughts. "Allow the rest to sort itself out with time."

I trace the imprint of her teeth, flame-feathered mockingjays keening a four-note tune as the sky begins to burn. "She's . . . she and Haymitch are back in Twelve now. And I wish I was there, too."

"Yes," he agrees softly. “You miss her.”

Leather cuffs. A hard wooden chair. I frown, blinking to clear my vision. "The Capitol tortured me to try to manipulate Katniss, made me believe she wanted to kill me--"

Shaking my head, I draw a breath, but the image is still there. Blood soaking into the sand. Fanged mouths hissing as cannons rattle the sticky night air.

"My family is dead. Snow is gone. So is Coin. Most of the people who hurt us have already been captured."

He’d told me that much, that Dr. Gai had been repeatedly implicated, through sources like Janus who were secretly feeding information to the resistance, and in statements from the guards, technicians, and higher-ups they’d already apprehended. That even if he wasn’t consciously present in my memory, it shouldn’t cause me to doubt what so many could testify to.

I let the rice sack fall from hand to hand. "Where will he sit?"

"There." Dr. Aurelius indicates the plain chair by the door. "They’ll want his hands bound and visible. He won’t be allowed to approach the table."

The current is conducted through a metal cage around my groin, a searing electrical shock so many times worse than hitting the force field that my teeth slam together and I arch off the chair with a crazed yelp, immediately spewing up what little water and runny grain I was given the day before. There are no minutes, seconds, only the shocks and the terrifying span of time that passes in between as I wait, helpless, for the next one to occur.

I can’t move. Can’t react. I am a drooling, quivering mass, the pain so agonizing, the threat of its return so debilitating that the next time, no matter how terrified I might be, tears and snot streaming down my neck as my lips peel back in a silent scream, I cannot avert my eyes, even for a second, from the image of the mutt as she slaughters the other tributes, one by one.

Dr. Lucius studies my face. "Other questions?"

I mull over it. We've reviewed the details too many times to count. I would be allowed five minutes, a time limit short enough our visit could be stricken from the records entirely. I was to signal Dr. Aurelius if I became too uncomfortable to continue, and he would instruct the guards to take Dr. Gai back out.

“Do you think he’s expecting this? Knows we’re coming.”

They exchange a glance, and I frown, looking between them.

Dr. Lucius shrugs. “It’s impossible to say.”

Ignoring him, I turn to Dr. Aurelius. “What _aren’t_ you telling me?”

He sighs, and although he, too, folds his arms and stares out the window as though it’s the last question on earth he’d prefer to answer, there’s no dismissiveness there.

“Yesterday when I was sent here to meet with Dr. Gai one final time to determine whether or not he was mentally competent to stand trial, I was instructed to ask about all known reports of abuse we have on record. Not just the ones that have played heavily in the media in recent days like yours, Johanna’s and Annie’s, but from other prisoners who were later recovered, and from his years at the Frost Institute.”

“The Avoxes.”

“Yes.” Dr. Aurelius meets my eyes. “He reacted . . . oddly to the mention of your name.”

“Oddly how?” I demand, suddenly queasy. It seemed somehow strange that I’d never asked if he knew where I’d been held, if we were close to it now. That maybe all of them knew when I did not. That _he’d_ watched me writhe there in the dark, covered in something small and unseen with multiple creeping legs. Smiled as I scratched desperately, screaming, rolling across the concrete floor in an effort to crush them. Taken note of what time I came to, the light so bright it was more painful than the needle they used to subdue me as a medic worked to dress the deep red gashes that ran the length of my arms and crisscrossed my chest. That must have covered my face and neck as well.

“Tell me,” I insist again, and to his credit, Dr. Aurelius doesn’t look away.

“He responded for the first time since I’d entered the room and asked how your condition was progressing.”

For a beat, I just stare at him, stunned.

“And you _told_ him?” I finally grit out, fighting and failing to keep from sounding wounded. “That you’re treating me?”

“No.” Ever calm, Dr. Aurelius shakes his head. “Of course not, but it’s not particularly difficult to surmise, either.”

Dr. Lucius clears his throat, ignoring the look I give him. “Gai would be familiar with his professional history even before the news broadcasts of Katniss Everdeen’s trial, which he surely would have followed, wherever he was hiding out. Aurelius is an obvious choice.”

I glower at him. "Why are you even here?"

"Peeta," Dr. Aurelius interjects, and although he doesn’t raise his voice, I don’t miss the reprimand.

Scrubbing both hands through my hair, I put my head down. "I know it’s in case I . . . _freak_ out or something, but can you just wait outside?"

The door is closing behind him when a guard leans in.

"Two minutes."

I blow out a breath, stomach doing flips. Dr. Aurelius studies me silently.

“Peeta, I want you to remember that if at any time you feel uncomfortable--”

“I know.” Stopping him, I finger the rice sack, trying to think of something to change the subject. “I had the dream again, last night.”

Dr. Aurelius adjusts his glasses. “And is this the one from the Quarter Quell . . . or the one from the prison?”

I scrub a hand through my hair and glance towards the door. “It’s . . . the first one. I’m trying to find Katniss.”

“I see.” His voice is gentle. “What happens?”

“I’ve fallen. I’m in a . . . clearing of some kind.” I rub the scar on the back of my hand, neck starting to prickle. “I’m yelling for Katniss. But she won’t answer. She can’t hear me. And I can’t get to her.”

Dr. Aurelius nods. “And is the figure you’ve spoken of before in association with this dream, the one that was pursuing you, present?”

I don’t respond, still staring at the back of my hand, flinching at the sudden image of my fingers splattered with blood. “No. I’m all alone.”

He studies my profile, seeming to consider the next question carefully. “And does it feel as if you’re recalling actual events, or like this dream was more a representation of the fears you experienced that night in the arena?”

I frown. “I--”

There’s a knock. Dr. Aurelius looks at me.

“Are you ready?”

I swallow, reminding myself of what the man on the other side of the door ordered the guards to do to Annie, who Dr. Aurelius said declined Paylor's offer to come, and to Johanna, who wasn't deemed stable enough to see him today. I think of Lael, quiet, angry, withdrawn Lael, who never smiled, Lael, who just yesterday told me he was glad I was doing what I was doing, that he’d heard the horror stories for years, down in the tunnels, Janus, who it was clear might not live long enough to see justice carried out, if Panem was even capable of such a thing, and of the countless other Avoxes, most of them those in positions of power would just as soon overlook.

And finally, I think of Katniss, fierce, fearless Katniss, who not for one second would have hesitated to put an arrow through his eye for what he’d done to me, to _us_ , fucking rules be damned. And with an image of a single braid and Seam gray eyes locked firmly in my mind, I turn to Dr. Aurelius and silently nod. 

 

* * *

 

"Can we stop for a minute?"

Twenty yards in front of me, Katniss slows just before she can cross a small stream. I wait for her to turn and pull out her water skin, _hoping_ maybe she'll start back towards me, even, but unsurprised when all I see is a visible tightening of her thin shoulders beneath the canvas straps of her knapsack.

Shaking my head, I slide unsteadily down the short slope and yank off my pack, trying not to crush every last twig and leaf as I cross the last few steps to her side and unload my gear.

Suddenly wary, Katniss rubs her hands down the sides of her pants and jerks her thumb towards the trees. "I'm just gonna go--"

"We need to talk," I interrupt, dropping our second sack of supplies next to a log. "And for the record, I've had twice as much water as you and only peed once."

She flushes and glowers in my direction. "So now you're _counting_ how many times I have to pee?"

"I'm not stupid, Katniss,” I retort dryly. “You've been avoiding me all morning."

She blows a strand of hair out of her eyes, fidgeting in place. "Can we just . . . _not_ do this right now--"

"Yeah, well, I’ve been trying to give you space.” Careful to keep my tone even, I cross my arms. “But we can’t just ignore each other all weekend.”

Katniss huffs and glares out at the trees.

I shrug. “If this is about last night, if you're pissed at me, just fucking _say it_ and let's talk about it. But please don't push me away like I don't even matter to you at all. Not after everything else."

And _finally,_ she has the decency to look up. Cheeks splotched bright with anger, she grips her bow.

"You--" Chewing her lip, she rubs her fingers over the pearl. "You kept it from me all these months. You and Haymitch."

Her voice is low, accusatory. Shaking my head, I run a hand through my hair, for half a second tempted to ask her how it felt for once to be on the other side of _that_ equation.

"Look," I say instead. "I already told you I was sorry, tried to explain why I didn't say anything. I wanted to give it to you in a way that would feel special. Believe me, I never would have gone to the trouble of having it made into a necklace if I thought it was just going to make you upset."

Katniss blinks back tears and quickly frowns off into the trees.

"I--" Taking a breath, she blows a strand of hair off her face. "That day. I _told_ you." She closes her eyes, voice cracking. "You had a flashback and I made us soup. And I told you . . . _everything._ You _knew_ it was important to me.”

Turning away, she swipes a hand across her cheeks, and I want to kick myself in the nuts for being stupid enough to think keeping something like this a secret was ever a good idea.

"Katniss--" I watch her dig the pearl from beneath her collar again and twist it nervously on its silver chain. "Look . . . I'm sorry, all right? Do you want me to call Effie when we get home, ask her how hard it would be to send it back to the jeweler . . . have them restore it to the way it was so you can't tell--"

"No," she answers sullenly.

“Then what is it you want me to do?”

She just shrugs.

"So, there’s no way I can fix this?” I ask after a beat, sarcasm creeping in. "It doesn’t even matter to you what my intentions were?”

She huffs again and quickly wipes her eyes while I stare at the ground, feeling like a royal jerk. And after a few seconds, she scrubs her nose on her sleeve and yanks up her pack.

"Let’s just go. We're nearly there."

I frown, but it's a subject Dr. Aurelius and I keep going round and round about. That Katniss may always struggle to work through her emotions, may never be able to determine with the same ease or confidence I can _why_ something is upsetting her. That I have to be patient, that trying to force her to open up when we’ve at least talked about whatever it is and she's asking for space will only cause her to further withdraw, and that even if it frustrates me, I have to back off. That I can't keep interpreting her need for time to sort things out as some sort of tacit rejection, even if that's how it feels to me at the time.

And so I watch despondently as, with little more than a glance in my direction, Katniss Everdeen hops up on a downed tree and nimbly chooses her steps to the other side of the small brook it spans, fully aware I'll be unable to keep up with my leg and seeming to prefer it that way as she hurries off into the woods without me.

* * *

We spend the afternoon apart, Katniss grabbing her bow and the fishing gear as soon as we reach the lake and vanishing like a shadow off into the trees. I chop firewood until I’ve worked the frustration out of my shoulders, clean out the hearth, and then take my sketchbook and box of pencils over to the water's edge.

Out across the lake, tall conifer trees stand in haphazard rows below imposing cliff faces. Aspens in the height of their autumn glory ripple radiantly in the midday sun. A mockingjay lands on a nearby branch, delicate, breakable wings tucked to its slender body as we study one another in silence. But the only images I can coax up the enthusiasm to put to paper are the curve of a familiar neck as it sinks into a pillow, the look of conflict reflected in pewter eyes as they try to decide what to do with a pearl they don't expect to live long enough to keep, and the flush in a pair of cheeks as their owner glares at a pair of undershorts in a stream bed.

By the time I hear her, she's only a few yards away, expression pensive as she shrugs off her game bag and frowns out at the water. I say nothing, tapping the end of a soft charcoal pencil against the cover of my sketchbook. Sinking down next to me in the grass, Katniss hunches her shoulders and props her arms on her knees.

After a moment, she crinkles her nose and stares up at the sky. "I don't know how to explain it to you."

I take a breath and gently slip my fingers underneath the flannel collar of her shirt, stroking the nape of her neck. "Sometimes it seems easier when we work out the words together. At least to me."

She chews the inside of her cheek, leaning down to scoop up a smooth pebble near the water's edge.

"I, uh, kept it close to me." She clears her throat. "The pearl. You know, after we got separated. When Snow had you. The night the bombs fell. When you were thousands of miles away and I knew they were--"

Her voice wavers. And when she quickly looks out towards the trees and runs her shirtsleeve past her eyes, I quietly reach for her hand.

She blows the hair off her forehead. "It was stupid, _so_ stupid. But sometimes I would . . . I don’t know, would tell myself we were still somehow . . . _connected_.”

“Connected,” I echo softly, the word tasting undeniably of hope.

“Yeah, you know?” Katniss bites her lip. “That if I just kept it safe with me, then no one could--"

She doesn't finish.

After a minute, I run my thumb slowly along the scars on her fingers. "Can I ask you something I've always wondered about?"

Katniss swallows, but nods.

I lick my lips, staring intently at her profile. "Why did you _keep_ carrying it? Later, after I was rescued? We . . . I mean, I think we both would agree we weren't together back then."

I gently sidestep the rest. It's a topic we've been working on with Dr. Aurelius, listening to what each of us experienced during those months after the second arena exploded and we were separated, accepting that both of us had been indescribably hurt and hurt each other countless times over. That _different_ didn’t always have to be quantified by better or worse, but merely accepted as fact. That acknowledgement wasn’t always the same as admittance of blame, but rather the recognition that something had been heard.

Katniss pulls her hand away and picks at her thumbnail, mouth turning down at the corners. "I missed you . . . the old you."

"Oh."

A hard lump forms in my chest. I let her pull away, undeniably wounded by the longing in her voice.

I squint out at the water even as Dr. Aurelius chides me for it, trying to pry into my head in that tone he always uses when I’m considering throwing the phone at the wall and Katniss is busy shredding her nails to bits. Huffing out a breath, I rub the scar on the back of my hand, trying to decide what about it was so hurtful, why it drew such a visceral reaction for Katniss to say she missed the old me when she very well might not have meant anything by it at all.

I lick my lips. “Sometimes . . . especially early on, it didn’t always feel like he and I were even the same person anymore _._ ”

Katniss nods and I wait, hoping for some acknowledgement or at least _recognition_ she might have hurt my feelings, but she just slowly flips the pebble over and over in her hand.

I swallow and stare out at the water, part of me wanting to tell her there were moments I wasn't sure she would _ever_ want me the same way I wanted her, that on nights I couldn’t sleep and she lay still and comforted in the circle of my arms, I worried our relationship was just too damaged from the start, that maybe she couldn't love me that way. But I don’t, a larger part of me terrified of what she would say if I did, aware that no matter what her answer might be, it would do nothing to change what sometimes felt like an almost pathological need for her.

"So, you still worried about me," I say instead. "Even later on, when we weren’t talking?”

"Of course." She scowls, hurling the pebble out into the water where it immediately sinks beneath the surface.

I sigh. "I just meant--"

"I'm going to get started on supper.” Face devoid of all emotion, Katniss brushes off her pants. “Can you build a fire when you get the--"

"It's ready to be lit," I say evenly, refusing to play her game.

She picks up her bow and slings her game bag over one shoulder, but hesitates once it’s there, shifting in her boots. I swallow as seconds tick by, fidgeting with the edge of my sketchbook.

“You still miss the old me. Real or not real?”

Her silence is answer enough, even before I finally hear her draw a reluctant breath.

“Real.” The end of her bow pokes at the grass. “Sometimes.”

Stung even though part of me was expecting it, I try to form the next question.

"You’re sorry we’re together now,” I say slowly. “That I’m not . . . _him._ Real or not--"

I’m interrupted by a calloused hand sliding to my cheek and tipping up my chin. I can smell the forest on her fingers. Mint. Wild onions. The marshy scent of the lake. A blend of herbs I couldn’t identify, mixed with fragrant lavender soap. She’d been good lately about remembering to wash her hands if they got especially bloody.

"No, that’s . . . it’s not real. I’ve never been sorry we’re together.” Her eyes search mine. “Are you feeling okay?"

I nod, quickly looking away when her frown deepens. Shifting my prosthetic, I toy with her fingers.

“I hate fighting with you.”

Tracing her thumb lightly over the scar she left on the back of my hand, Katniss finally tugs me to my feet, pulling me in the direction of the little stone house.

"C’mon. Let’s make dinner."

 

* * *

 

I don’t react as he’s brought in, of all the things sixteen years of living with my mother having taught me, no lesson having been more indelibly imprinted than the importance of maintaining an air of blithe indifference when approached by someone who presented a threat. Fiddling with the rice sock underneath the edge of the table, I wait while two guards order him to sit, watching out of the corner of my eye as he winces and tucks an arm further into his ribs. The two guards step back, but only just, hands positioned on their sidearms. Beside me, Dr. Aurelius remains silent.

Swallowing one final time, I allow my gaze to flick across the table, and even though I’m prepared for the possibility, I still feel a jolt when I look up to find he’s staring at me, too. I have no conscious memory of Dr. Gai, something only confirmed by the hours spent poring over photographs Dr. Aurelius obtained in an effort to desensitize me as best we could, with few to no results for my troubles but a series of sharp headaches. That said, there isn’t anything particularly memorable _about_ him to begin with. He’s middle-aged. Not too tall. Dark hair sprinkled liberally with gray. Maybe the most notable thing would be the scrolling sleeves of tattoos in strange designs I don’t recognize . . . but even _those_ are probably pretty tame here in the Capitol.

His hair is wet, the collar of his drab District 13 uniform damp as if he'd just showered, but there isn’t anyone left seated at the table who’s naive enough to believe that's what was actually going on while he was in the other room, least of all, me. And as we appraise one another, his eyes narrowing curiously, mouth thinning at the corners in what could _almost_ be a smirk, something inside me galvanizes and I'm no longer nervous in the least, but _furious_

I lift my hands from my lap and rest them on the table, silently looking around the room. In my memories of being there, of eating here in the Training Center, this room, or the identical one on the floor above, was always full of people. Haymitch, whose family had been killed by the Capitol. Katniss, who’d lost Prim. Cinna and Portia, whose taped executions I’d been forced to watch over and over until I vomited. Effie, who’d been thrown in a cell and all but starved. And the Avox servants lining the walls like unseen ghosts, with who knew how many of them slaughtered like animals no one would look for or miss by the end of the war

I take a breath

"You know," I say softly. "For the longest time, I wanted to ask somebody _why."_

No one moves. I don’t look at Dr. Aurelius. Not for help and not for permission, because that’s something we’ve been over, too. That he won’t intercede unless he thinks I want or need him to.

 _"Why_ did you set out to hurt me, to hurt Katniss? _Why_ was I the one chosen? Was I the only one you tried to hijack, or just the only one who survived it?"

Dr. Gai turns towards the large window and faces the open city, mouth twitching slightly.

I shake my head. "But I honestly think it would be pointless to ask someone what was going through their head while they ordered Johanna Mason to be electrocuted day after day after day, to let the guards brutalize Annie when it was obvious she didn't know anything, and to have Darius hacked to pieces in front of me . . . you don't do things like that unless you're fucking nuts."

He still doesn't respond. Beside me, Dr. Aurelius tilts his head, watching him intently.

“I want you to know there are still days when I wake up and have a hard time remembering the room I used to share with my two brothers. Sometimes it takes half an hour to come back . . . sometimes more. Most days I still can’t really see the details.” Lacing my fingers, I lean forward. “But one thing I do remember clearly is this boy from town, Tanner Clare.”

Dr. Gai shifts in his chair, wincing slightly at the movement. I go on.

“His father owned the Mercantile, and when we were younger, he used to sit there at recess pulling the legs off beetles just to watch them slowly die. Then I remember later, he would find two desperate younger kids from the Seam, which, as you can imagine, wasn’t all that difficult around Twelve, and offer them a coin or two to fight, just so he and some of the other guys could watch.” I wait a beat, unable to keep the disgust from my voice. “He got off on that sort of thing. Waiting to see what they would do.”

The room falls silent, and as Dr. Aurelius gives a barely perceptible nod, I have to swallow back the lump in my throat.

"So, I guess what I want to know is . . . are you sorry at all, even a little?" I stare at him even as he now refuses to look at me. "Or was torturing us no different than some fucked up kid pulling the legs off a beetle? Is that how you see those of us from the districts? Like we’re ants getting into your food. How about the Avoxes? Or maybe we're all just insects to exterminate to you."

Dr. Gai smiles, still facing the window. And then slowly turns towards me.

"Peeta _Mellark."_ He enunciates my name as if he's in on some private joke, and almost immediately my skin begins to crawl. "Would you like to know what I find amusing?"

And even though I feel like I’m about to break out into hives, I stare him down. "So, you don't have an answer?"

Gai shrugs.

“War is an unsavory business. And there is a cost to everything.”

“A cost?” I laugh coldly. _“That’s_ what you call murder. Torture. R--”

“How many more lives would be lost without research?" He tilts his head, hands still manacled. "You’re very young, Peeta Mellark, but surely not naive enough to believe the interrogation of captured prisoners is a technique employed _only_ in the Capitol--that Alma Coin didn't have a secret room of her own hidden away in the catacombs of Thirteen?"

I say nothing. Dr. Aurelius steps in.

"What an absurd argument," he interjects, voice calm. "One which merely attempts to deflect attention from the torture, medical experimentation upon, and rape of prisoners held in your facilities."

Gai ignores him, still facing me. "You requested an answer. We were at war. I did what was required of me, protecting those in the Capitol whose way of life was being threatened: my friends, my family, my neighbors."

At this, my lip curls into a sneer. He pauses and tilts his head, shrewd eyes locked with mine.

"You asked what was going through my head, Peeta Mellark, as that Avox was hacked to pieces. Might I remind you, that I am not the only individual here with blood on his hands."

The room seems to still. I grip the edge of the table, blinking, struggling to see through the heavy fabric of a hood. The sour stench of urine chokes each breath, the room dark but for a single punishing light directly in front of me. Everything else is dulled, like my ears have been stuffed full of cotton, Dr. Aurelius' voice sharper than I can ever remember having heard it. Long-bladed knives. Screams, her screams. Words, low and distorted, repeating the same message over and over, one that by then I’d already guessed. That they'd left me behind. I'd been too slow. Too weak. That unlike Katniss Everdeen, I would never be a survivor.

At some point, everything grows quiet. I hear Dr. Aurelius talking to me, telling me he was gone, and eventually I must release my grip on the table, because by the time I blearily open my eyes, I’ve sagged back in the chair and Dr. Lucius is pouring me a glass of water which I pounce upon with little finesse.

"How are you feeling?" Dr. Aurelius pulls out the dreaded pen light, and I groan.

"Like shit." I rub the edge of the glass with my thumb. "I, uh, think I recognized his voice. It was pretty creepy, the way it made my skin crawl."

"I was wondering if anything would return once you were in the same room," Dr. Lucius says quietly, lowering his head when I turn his way. "Very disturbed individual. Early on in my training, I had to complete a rotation under his supervision at the Frost Institute, and let's just say he had a preoccupation with control and inflicting injury all along."

I swallow, not answering. Dr. Aurelius leans forward.

"Peeta, before we go any further, I want to be very clear with you that the last statement Dr. Gai made--implying you were somehow to blame for events as they occurred or could be in any way compared to him--exploits well-known torture techniques as well, and should be taken as nothing more than a last-ditch effort at manipulation.”

I shrug, not wanting to admit out loud that for everything else he’d said having been bullshit, on that last one, he’d kind of had a point.

Dr. Aurelius continues, eyes not leaving my face. “Victims of torture are often forced to sexually assault, maim, or even kill other prisoners while in captivity. It is a way of inflicting further trauma, as well as to exploit the feelings of presumed guilt that inevitably follow the victim forced to play-act the role of aggressor, even while the captor has maintained total control, causing exponential harm and lasting emotional damage to all victims involved. The Hunger Games are a particularly disgusting example, set on a very public stage, but you should understand they aren’t a unique one. Decima and I, along with others, have for years been taking the accounts of Avoxes who have been tortured in a similar fashion.”

He waits a beat, but I don’t look up.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“I get it.” Stomach hurting, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Can we just go? I don’t feel good.”

Neither of them move.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Dr. Aurelius repeats calmly.

I huff out a breath. “Fine. It wasn’t my fault.”

But I know he hears it, the hitch in my voice, and even if Dr. Lucius and I get along about as well as yeast and ice cold water, he’s no idiot either. I run my thumb back and forth along the edge of the table, something gripping my chest in an invisible fist.

“Peeta?”

I turn to stare out at the Capitol, the toxic feeling growing until I can scarcely breathe for it, the lie clawing to get out even as I’m too ashamed to form the words.

“Before,” I rasp. “In the dream . . . when you asked if I was alone. I told you I had been, but--”

I blink, shivering just as the figure emerges across the clearing, knife catching the ominous glow of the moon. There’s no time to beg, to plead, to try to make myself look small. He spots me, our eyes locking for an endless, nauseating second as his lips peel back in the feral grin of an animal that’s stumbled across easy prey, and I know, _know,_ in that moment, that I’m going to die.

He strides lazily forward as I attempt to scramble back in the dirt, still unable to rise, knowing they would be playing this footage live, across all of Panem, wishing only that I could have seen Katniss one more time, to tell her how sorry I was that I couldn’t have protected her.

I’m reaching for my knife when a shadow blurs past, almost on top of me. He lands in a crouch, dark and sinewy as a panther. The sneer falls from Brutus’ face as he raises his weapon in a defensive stance. And then it begins. Metal sparks angrily on metal, barks and grunts sharp in the thick jungle air as streaks of red liberally paint the sand. I stagger to my feet, head jerking up at the sound of hissing, only to discover the tree canopy sinking from the weight of hundreds of unintended viewers, lips retracted from their fangs as they drink in the fight below with all the voyeuristic savagery of the Capitol.

A cannon fires and the monkeys begin to scream. And then there is only Katniss. Staring down at the pearl, the azure blue ocean lapping lazily at the sand behind her. Frowning at it as if trying to figure out how, without her notice, whatever had once existed between us had been reformed. Molded from something else under pressure, or perhaps slowly grown, layer upon layer smoothly taking shape until _we_ were rooted deeply in her heart as she always had been in mine.

And then there is no longer any question what I will do.

“Peeta?” Dr. Aurelius asks gently, and I flinch.

“I lied,” I admit, unable to look at either of them.

When Dr. Aurelius still says nothing, I exhale hard, poking at the water glass.

“In the dream . . . I knew who it was, the figure that’s been following me.” Shrugging, I wipe my nose. “I just didn’t want what was going to happen to happen.”

“No.” Dr. Aurelius nods solemnly. “You’ll be amazed the lengths we as human beings will go to in order to avoid things that can hurt us.”

I say nothing.

He squeezes my shoulder, rising. “Let’s talk about this more back at the hospital.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding, wondering how long he’d suspected, if it had only been the last few days, or if he’d understood something was off from the start, had merely been waiting for me to be ready to confront it head on.

 

* * *

 

"Are you warm enough?"

In the pale cider glow of firelight, Katniss slides her eyes my way and offers the barest of nods, fingers tightening where they hold up the edges of her quilt. Seated beside her, I shift in place and try not to make my discomfort obvious. With my leg, there just aren't that many ways to sit flat on a concrete floor for long, and especially not without something solid to lean against.

Compared to the last time we were here, the inside of the tiny house looks a little less bare. We'd brought up a few more things this trip--cookware and utensils, another quilt and a pillow to share, and smaller items like an old canning jar of matches and a small cake of soap wrapped in wax paper. But carrying something as large as a table or a chair, even if we brought it in parts, seemed like a much more daunting task.

"That day--"

I lift my head. Katniss clears her throat, cheeks picking up a hint of color as I wait for her to go on.

"The last time I had the pearl," she starts again, more deliberately this time, "was the morning we left Tigris' basement." Chewing her lip, she turns, not to meet my gaze, but enough that I can tell she’s silently measuring my reaction. "Do you remember?"

Her hair spills past her cheek in a dark curtain, obscuring half her profile. Nodding, I smooth it back.

Katniss closes her eyes as my finger caresses the delicate shell of her ear and blows out a breath. "That day. We said our goodbyes. I hugged you, and--"

She blinks, looking away. Carefully, I scoot closer and tip up her chin.

"And what?" I ask gently, tracing away the tear that forms. "Tell me."

Katniss exhales hard. I lean in to kiss her, worrying her upper lip until at last it grows soft and pliant, until she sighs into my mouth and kisses me back. Cupping her face, I press my forehead to hers.

“Tell me, Kat.”

"Saying goodbye . . . it was like at the lightning tree," she whispers, eyes squeezed shut. "Like I was losing you all over again.”

"You're _not_ going to lose me," I murmur, thumbs smoothing fresh tears from her cheekbones. "Snow is dead. The Games are over. Remember?"

"I _failed_ ," she forces out, another stubborn Everdeen tear streaking past her nose. "I couldn't keep you safe."

 _"Katniss."_ Cradling her close, I drop kisses on the tip of her nose, her brow, and her lips, doggedly persisting until at last dark, dewy eyelashes blink up at me. "You _did_ keep me safe. You fought so hard to protect me. In whatever way you could."

She frowns, fingers shaking as they absently rotate the pearl at her neck, looking past me as if we’re not even in the same room.

“Katniss--”

But I stop short, something she’d said clicking into place. The Lightning Tree. Loops of golden wire and screams in the dark. A pewter pearl born in an arena where we were both meant to die. The haunted look in her eyes the moment she'd first unwrapped it, Katniss Everdeen having proven time and again she might punish anyone who dared get close when she was in pain, but not as harshly by half as she saw fit to punish herself for pushing them away. A token of love given to her by the old Peeta Mellark, the last thing she would ever receive from _him_ incinerated the instant the bombs were dropped outside the President’s mansion--

Katniss stares into the fire, eyes red and glassy, and not for the first time that day, I want to kick myself.

"It wasn’t your fault," I say softly, pressing a kiss to the crease that forms at the center of her brow. "What happened to Prim. To any of them. And they never would have wanted you telling yourself that it was."

Katniss blinks, looking away as I gently tuck back the strands of hair sticking to her cheeks. It’s a conversation we’ve had over and over. Late at night when she just can’t fall asleep for the memory of seeing Finnick eaten alive by lizard mutts hissing _her_ name. When her screams wake us both in the early hours, images of children lying dead in the freshly fallen snow, of pods going off, of the countless horrors concealed down in the tunnels. But worst of all were the rainy afternoons she couldn’t go off into the woods, afternoons that had once been filled with card games and house chores, with the silly sisterly arguments over a grouchy old tomcat who sometimes still mewed despondently like an eighteen pound kitten outside her bedroom door as it if might cause Prim to reappear. On those afternoons, it’s all I can do to hold her as she silently weeps, promising that things would feel good again, one day, that it wouldn’t always hurt like this.

"I saw her,” Katniss whispers hoarsely irises cast the shadowed gray of wet paving stones. "That day. Just before the bombs went off." She stares into the fire as a tear streaks past her nose. "I watched my little sister burn alive."

She doesn’t resist when I pull her into my arms, burying her face in my neck and digging fingers into the flannel of my shirt. I hold her and just let her cry, softly stroking her back as she draws ragged breaths. And after she pulls away to wipe her cheeks, I study her profile, allowing only a moment of indecision before I clear my throat.

"There's something I have to tell you.”

It all comes tumbling out after that. Following her and Gale from Tigris’ shop. Shortening the distance between us after he was captured in order to better protect her. Coming closer still after seeing the parachutes explode. Watching her frantic scramble for the barricades, failing to understand until I followed her line of sight across the blood-spattered snow to where Prim stood. Shoving onlookers aside in a panic to go after her.

I fall silent, and for a beat, we just stare at each other. And then I shrug.

"I should have told you."

Her brow furrows, face warring between anger and hurt. "Why didn't you?"

There were what feel like a thousand reasons, and in that moment, none of them seem good enough to justify keeping it from her. "I don't know. We weren't exactly on speaking terms after they let me out of the burn unit."

She looks down, picking at her thumbnail. "I wasn't speaking to _anyone."_

"I know." A dark strand of hair trails past her cheek and I delicately tuck it back. "And I guess I didn't know quite how to bring it up after that. It's never been a day either one of us liked talking about."

Katniss stares up at me, expression indiscernible. Taking a breath, I cup her face in both hands.

"I'm sorry for not being upfront with you from the start. And I'm sorry for turning your pearl into a necklace without asking first. If all it holds for you is bad memories, we can take it out first thing tomorrow and chuck it in the lake."

 _"No."_ Scowling, she presses a hand protectively to her throat. "It isn't . . . that's not what I want."

I nod intently, waiting for her to go on, and when she doesn’t, lightly tip up her chin with the pressure of a single finger. “What _do_ you want?”

Katniss draws a shaky breath and rotates the pearl on its silver chain, chewing her lip so hard I’m worried she’s going to make it bleed. “I needed you to understand. Why I couldn’t just be happy the instant I saw it again. Why I needed more time. And maybe, I don’t know, why maybe now it has to mean something different for us.”

I raise my eyebrows, nodding for her to continue.

She frowns. “Back in the arena . . . everything went so wrong. The Capitol almost destroyed us and then it was all we could do to hurt each other every chance we got.” She draws in a breath. “We have to make things different this time, to fix _us_ . . . really fix me and you so we’re whole and not so easily broken.”

A smile twitching at my mouth, I lean in and gently press my lips to hers in a kiss. She tastes of warm peppermint tea and the sugar cookies I’d packed for the trip, fingers cool and wonderfully familiar as they slide up my cheek. I tilt my head to kiss her deeper, breaking away and muttering a curse at my leg when I realize making out here isn’t going to work quite as comfortably as it did at home.

“Shit, sorry.”

“Here.” Reaching behind me, Katniss grabs the pillow. “Lie back.”

She stretches out beside me, propping herself on one elbow and dragging the quilt over both of us like we’re little kids hiding from our parents. Grinning, I slide my hands to her waist, just starting to nibble at her neck when she stops me.

“Um . . . can I ask you something?”

“’Course.” Keeping one arm snaked around her, I bring her close enough that she’s forced to put a hand on my chest for balance and slowly trace her bottom lip with the pad of my thumb, whispering, “Anything.”

Katniss’ eyes hold mine briefly before flitting away, her cheeks heating.

“It’s . . . about something you said. You know, back in the Capitol.” She swallows, the furrow forming once more at her brow. “You and . . . and Gale.”

“Okay,” I say slowly, watching for her reaction.

The line in her forehead deepens, and I sit up, kissing it as she toys with the buttons on my shirt. There’s something . . . _off_ there in the way she talks about him, a stiffness that had been easy to miss in the first months I’d been home, when just the mention of District Two on the news made me twitchy and _no one_ brought up Gale for fear of what I might do. But now that she and I are officially together and it’s less of a sore spot, it’s at the same time becoming ever more apparent I’m not the only one who’s acting strange about him. That for whatever reason, the two of them don’t seem to be talking. At all. Not that I wanted them to, but that Katniss hasn’t shared any particular reason for radio silence feels almost as disconcerting as the occasional phone call I would have hated, but learned to live with for her sake.

“It was the middle of the night. You were debating which one of you I,” she pulls away a little, frowning towards the fire, “well, how the two of you thought I felt.”

She’s pissed, that much is easy to see, but there’s hurt in the hard set of her jaw, too. Nodding silently, I scrub a hand over the back of my neck.

“Didn’t think you heard all of that.”

Katniss glowers, picking up a stray chip of bark and tossing it into the flames. _“That’s_ all you have to say?”

“No,” I answer carefully. “What is it you want to know, exactly? I remember making a joke about you sneaking off while I was asleep, something you can hardly blame me for, by the way.”

She huffs crossly, but I ignore her, continuing in a soft voice.

“I remember us talking about what was real and what wasn’t, and Gale said . . . well, that you hadn’t ever kissed him the way _we_ kissed on the beach.”

She picks at her nails, still saying nothing.

Frowning when something catches in my throat, I exhale hard to clear it, unable to meet her eyes.

“I . . . told Gale how you pretty much admitted he was the one you loved. You know, the night of the whipping. That everything in the Games had been just part of the show. He said . . . I’d won you over. Given up everything for you. That maybe it was the only way to convince you how I really felt.”

Carefully, I let my gaze flick to hers, not daring to so much as breathe. Katniss hesitates, then runs a hand through her hair, frown deepening to a scowl.

“Not that part,” she snaps, abruptly sitting up the rest of the way. “After, when you asked how I would choose and Gale said I would just pick whoever could,” she messes with her thumbnail again, stabbing at it angrily, “ _offer_ me the most. Like I was one of Cray’s girls.”

Sighing, I sit up as well, leaning on my elbows. “So, now you’re pissed at _me_ for something Gale said?”

She picks at the edge of the blanket, shoulders hunched. “Well, you didn’t exactly argue.”

I don’t answer for a minute. “And you think I see you like one of Cray’s girls.”

Katniss rubs her face, exhaling. “It . . . that’s not what I mean to say. I . . . I can never get the words to come out right.”

I turn to stare at the fire, saying nothing.

After a moment, she shrugs. “Like you . . . and Gale . . . see me as only thinking about where my next meal is coming from. Not caring about love, or passion. Like I’m--”

When she doesn’t go on, I resume stroking up and down her spine. Finally, she shrugs, swiping at her cheeks.

“Like you think I’m . . . cold.” She chews her lip, refusing to look me in the eye. “Calculating.”

Sighing, I snake an arm around her waist, tugging her close. “C’mere.”

She doesn’t resist, allowing me to lie back with her on my chest, just like we used to sleep all those nights on the train. Trailing fingers through her hair, I press my lips softly to the tip of her little red nose.

“You’re not cold. Or calculating. That’s just silly. You’re wonderful.” She doesn’t respond, so I kiss her again, this time on the lips. “Remember last week when my leg was sore and I was being a real grouch about it, and you went all the way out to that grove of trees on the other side of the mountain where those turkeys roost because you knew how much I’d been wanting roast turkey?”

Katniss plays with the buttons on my shirt again, but her lips twitch in a sort of shrug. Undeterred, I smooth her hair off her forehead.

“Hmm? Or the way you always bring me up cups of hot tea when I’m painting on Sunday afternoons so I don’t have to keep going back down the stairs?”

Her face softens a little, but hurt just as quickly creeps in. “Then why didn’t you say anything to Gale? You _agreed_ with him.”

I cup her jaw, gently tracing the delicate cheekbones she’d gotten from her mother until she looks up at me.

“What I remember Gale saying is you would choose whichever one of us you couldn’t survive without.” Shrugging, I stare into her eyes. “And I don’t think that’s the same thing as calling you cold at all. I love you, Katniss. I could never be happy without you, either. How does Gale assuming you would eventually figure out how you felt and decide automatically make you cold?”

She scowls, pushing herself up on an arm. “That’s . . . the way you’re saying it . . . it’s only coming out nicer because you don’t know _Gale._ Not really. Trust me, that’s definitely how he meant it. Like I . . . well, like I only cared who would put the most food on my table.”

She finishes the last part in a whisper. I prop myself up as well and smooth her hair behind one ear, softly tracing her face.

“That’s not who you are, Katniss. And if Gale doesn’t get that, he’s an idiot.”

“Yeah, well.” Katniss flops back on the pillow. “He was supposed to be my best friend.” Her breath starts to quicken as tears form. “And you--“

Her mouth comes open, bottom lip catching in her teeth. I cradle her cheek with infinite tenderness, watching the firelight flicker over her skin.

“What about me, sweetheart?” I ask intently, gaze never leaving her face.

But Katniss shakes her head, eyes glassy and vulnerable. I let my thumb brush softly across her cheek, waiting until she lifts her chin to lower myself on top of her and gently claim her mouth. Her fingers curl into my hair, her other hand sliding to my back as the kiss deepens, and even though we’re on a cement floor and it’s uncomfortable as fuck, it feels so good to be kissing her, the two of us all alone out here at the lake with the dark forest surrounding us and the cold night air and the warm fire roaring in the hearth. And this time, for her kisses to be _real._

“Peeta?” she whispers against my lips, stilling the progress of my hand slipping under the hem of her shirt.

“Hmm?” Nuzzling her nose, I rest my forehead lightly against hers.

She slides a hand down my chest, voice briefly faltering. “It . . . it was always going to be you.”

Her eyes lift to mine for one unguarded moment, and warmth floods my chest. Cupping her face, I kiss her tenderly, memorizing the taste and texture of her lips as Katniss drags the quilts up so we're shrouded in darkness and our own little cocoon of privacy.

Once there, she threads fingers into my hair and holds me in place as her tongue explores every last corner of my mouth, a deep, searching kiss made all the more intimate by the warm amber firelight visible through the blankets and the knowledge that out here at the lake, we were completely and utterly alone. Unable to be interrupted by the impromptu _visits_ Sae or Haymitch had been staging at random intervals, and without the responsibility of the work crew to remember in the morning. Nothing but her lips and mine. Her hands and mine. Our bodies deciding when to keep going and where to stop.

Katniss pushes me onto my back, nudging a knee across my thighs and sliding on top of me before reclaiming my lips. She's been doing this more and more since I told her I liked it, taking the lead when we make out, getting more aggressive in pushing me down and showing me she’s hungry for me, too, and nothing gets me going faster. I've popped a huge tent by the time she breaks for air, and I don't miss the way she bites the corner of her lip as she smirks down at my lap.

"Something funny, Everdeen?" I tease, popping her on the butt for good measure.

Katniss squawks in surprise and lands on my chest, thumping me in protest, but the movement pushes her into my cock, and both of us go silent when she begins to rock slowly back and forth. She leans down when I lift my chin to reach her mouth, and I trace my fingers lightly up her spine, underneath her top, lingering over the clasp of her bra and thinking of the conversation we'd had the night before.

There’s something about being here that feels wonderfully like the cave, the hardness of the stone floor at my back, the chill of the wind coming in through the open doorway, Katniss warm and soft in my arms as we lie snug in a bundle of quilts. I don’t know how much time has passed with us like that, the blankets shifting back and forth as we make out, my hands going just about everywhere, and she's so stealthy that at first I don't notice what she's doing, not until she's on the next to last button, the one way down at the tail of my shirt. Her lips have worked their way from my jaw down to the base of my throat, and are sucking lightly just to the right of my collarbone, which I'd never really realized before now is a fucking _amazing_ place to get kissed. And it's only after she works the halves of my shirt apart and pushes it off my shoulders, and the icy brush of her fingertips makes me flinch that she hesitates.

"Is this . . . um, you know . . . are you okay--?"

"What?" Sitting up a little to finish tugging it off, I briefly debate asking if she wants to remove my undershirt, too.

But she pulls back. "Is this, um, okay?"

"C'mere," I murmur, pulling her down. Holding her face in both hands, I kiss her deeply and then stare up into her eyes, voice husky. "It’s very, _very_ okay. And just so you know, you kissing me that way is another thing that _really_ works for me."

Katniss licks her lips, pupils growing fat in the dim light. Her breath warms my mouth as she slowly leans in, each exhale a caress as I lift my head in anticipation of her kiss.

We slip back under the blankets, and it isn’t more than a minute or two before my undershirt joins the flannel in the growing pile on the floor. Katniss’ mouth finds mine, fingers shyly skimming my arms, and I rise up to meet her lips, pulling the blankets higher as hands begin to explore.

* * *

It’s such a small thing that at first, I write it off as nothing, a trick of firelight and shadow illuminating her skin, catching the edge of a single tooth and sharpening it to the point of a fang. I blink, and it's gone, replaced by the warm velvet of her tongue rubbing languidly against mine and the tentative touch of her hands moving over my chest.

Groaning when her lips trail down the underside of my jaw, leaving wet kisses in their wake, I smooth her hair back from her face, wanting to watch her expression while she did it. And that's when the dark strands tangled in my fingers begin to writhe and hiss like snakes.

_Mutt._

"Fuck, get up." Shoving Katniss off me, I stagger to my feet.

The room has a weird blurry quality to it, like I'm seeing everything through the bottom of a drinking glass, one that's been filled with something sparkling and fizzy like they serve in the Capitol, and it's hard as fuck to keep my balance. I trip over my own feet trying to reach for my shirt, Katniss grabbing me forcefully by the arms and shaking me the way my mom used to do with old towels to get out the wrinkles.

_"Peeta."_

She barks it in my ear, making me wonder how many times she's tried to get me to answer, and from somewhere numb in the back of my mind, it registers that it isn’t anger I hear in her voice, but desperation.

"I have to go," I mumble, yanking the shirt from her hands and stumbling past her towards the door. "Seeing things."

"Are you insane?" she snaps, grabbing my arm. Scowling, she gestures out at the cold night. "I'm not letting you wander alone through the woods.”

"I can't stay here." But even as I whine it, I let her drag me over to the fire and pull me down onto the pallet we'd made, shivering as she drapes the quilt around me. She slides in behind me and I tense, knowing this was it, that at any second I would feel the bite of the knife at my exposed throat. "Could hurt you."

"You won't." She begins to knead my shoulders, and while my skin recognizes her touch, it's all wrong. Razor fangs and spider claws that slice me apart piece by piece. Strips of shredded flesh sticking to the blood-slickened floor.

"Don't," I plead, voice raw. 

"Then what can I do?" The question sounds a thousand miles away, like we're trapped underground again, in the tunnels.

"Just go," I rasp, scrubbing both hands over my face. "Please. I'll hurt you. And you'll leave."

"I am _not_ leaving you," she snarls, pulling my hands away, more terrible and terrifying in that moment than I've ever seen her.

And then she's kissing me. A fire-clawed bird streaking the sky with flames. The fierce raven-haired huntress glaring down at me as I trespass in her woods. An angry, shouting girl I both despised and secretly coveted yanking me from a ladder as my hands clink in their manacles, the force of her mouth crashing into mine filled with the same raw fury and longing I’d tasted only once before. I shiver, going pliant in her hands, always, _always_ slave to the will of Katniss Everdeen. It’s a kiss. Only a kiss. No more able to be proven as real or not real than any of the hundreds she’d given me before. But something changes. It must. Because in the twisted, confusing seconds she finally releases me to glower into my eyes, I trust very little for certain, not the temperature in the room, not the day of the week, and barely my own name. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that some part of Katniss Everdeen must love me, too.

"Stay with me," I whisper, gripping the quilt tighter in both fists as ghosts start to return. The faceless guards with their clubs. The shocks and kicks and sharp licks of the knife. The unforgiving cement floor that has long grown slick with vomit and blood. And the cold recorded voice spelling out in infinite detail all the reasons Katniss could never love me.

I don't hear her reply, not over the roar of the tapes, the black oppressiveness of night after night spent alone in the riverbank, certain no one would ever come, or the itch of poison crawling under my skin as I struggle to claw it free. But somewhere at the thinnest edges of my hearing, at the most distant edge of the horizon where the vast, swirling symphony of stars are silenced by the palest whisper of dawn, a mockingjay begins to sing.

 

* * *

 

Part 3 of 4

 

I wanted to say a special thank you to GreenWool, who made this amazing banner for APAB! It now officially has art! 

Comments are like a pearl you can keep with you, always, even when Peeta can’t be around. Would love to hear what you thought :).

 


	11. Everything You Are

A/N: Last section contains descriptions of torture.

 

* * *

_“In the Arena, you only get one wish. And it’s very costly.”_

 

* * *

 

There are no nights I dread more than the ones Katniss wakes up screaming for me.

There's something so impossibly awful about seeing the person you love in pain and being powerless to stop it, of knowing all the promises whispered over a tear-soaked pillow and crushing hugs given as she clings to you with the feverish desperation of someone who's lost nearly every person she loves aren't enough to erase the hurt . . . that no matter what you say or do, the nightmares _will_ be back to haunt her again and again.

The bouts of depression that follow can last anywhere from hours to days, the only constant that they always come. Where I emerge from my flashbacks after only a few minutes, Katniss gets trapped indefinitely, prisoner to her mind's own particular brand of torture. Retreating to a desolate place where silver parachutes will always drop from the sky. Where bombs litter a trail of tiny bodies in the blood-splattered snow. And where no matter how frantically she pushes through the crowd, no matter how loudly she screams, she'll always be a breath too late to save Prim.

The second worst nights are the ones right after I go through a round of what Dr. Aurelius once defined as _periodic post-traumatic hallucinations_ , words that feel far too clean to describe ducking blows from a club while gripping the back of a chair like it's my last link to sanity, of caustically slurring the foulest names I can think of at the only girl I've ever loved while sweating through my clothes.

According to Haymitch, it's a pretty nasty process to witness, and the aftermath leaves me half in a stupor with the sort of headache I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Bad enough to make me doubt Katniss no matter how many times she swears the knives and clubs weren't real. There's a pill for it, but just like other medicines in the Capitol, it knocks you out cold while trapping you in dreams so vivid it's impossible to tell reality from fiction, truth from lie, whether Katniss Everdeen is gripping my face in both hands, stubbornly singing the Valley Song for what has to be the hundredth time as I babble incoherently about the pods going off, or dragging me by the hair across my cell floor.

And so by the time I crack crusty eyelids to glimpse the gray whisper of early morning, catch the first familiar whiff of cold air that tastes of pine and sunlight drifting in through windows that no longer hold yellowed panes of glass, and lick my lips only to get a mouthful of what is, by now, very familiar tasting hair, it feels like I've lived a thousand lifetimes, died a thousand deaths. And to wake to the innocence of a cold autumn morning with Katniss curled safe in my arms is enough to make my eyes start to sting a little as I work to free her hair from my mouth.

She stirs in her sleep when my shoulder jostles her, grumbling something in a petulant voice before burrowing back under my chin.

Laughing softly, I smooth her hair away and kiss her forehead. "Morning, sweetheart."

Her face scrunches, foot arching against my calf as she stretches in the confines of the sleeping bag. "S'cold."

I wrap my arms around her tighter, pecking another kiss to the soft crease that forms between her eyebrows. "I was thinking about getting up and building us a fire. Maybe warming up some of the cheese buns. What do you think?"

Katniss makes a little sound in the back of her throat, and I smile.

"Okay, _your_ cheese buns," I relent with an exaggerated sigh, finally causing the corner of her mouth to quirk up. "Do I at least get to eat some of the cookies I baked?"

Caught mid-yawn, she giggles, and I lean in to nuzzle the tip of her nose right where it’s starting to pick up color. She shoves me back playfully, but I just grin, memorizing the way she looks with her hair rumpled and her face soft from sleep.

“Are you feeling better?”

Reaching past me for the water skin, she takes a quick drink.

“Yeah, you know. I think so.”

Katniss passes the water container over when I motion for it, expression shifting to one of concern as I drain the rest of the almost-full pouch without pausing for breath. She pushes up on one elbow as I flop back onto the pillow, fingers carefully combing the hair off my forehead as she frowns down at me.

"Peeta--”

Her wrist brushes my nose as her fingertips trace my eyebrows, the faint hint of lavender soap no more than a tickle in my nostrils, buried beneath the cool tang of mint leaves, the sweet residue of pine sap and the rich smokiness of the fire that had burned in the hearth long into the night. All things that were inherently _her_ , just like this place, the lake where she'd come with her father as a girl, a tiny corner of Panem the Capitol had never touched. A place Katniss Everdeen still felt _strong_.

It's only when her fingers still and she repeats the question that I realize I haven't answered. Smiling lazily, I tilt my head to kiss the scars that graze the inside of her wrist.

"Fine." Her shirt has ridden up a little at the waist, and I smooth my fingertips over the exposed skin, tracing a swirling line from her hips to her spine that causes gooseflesh to break out. She’s still staring expectantly, so I murmur, "I love it when you do that. Run your hands through my hair--"

"You know what I mean," Katniss interrupts, poking me in the chest, voice still husky with sleep when she turns her head to cough. "I mean . . . from last night."

"I'm fine," I insist, a little harsher this time, and plant a slow kiss in the center of her palm to soften it. "Thank you for taking care of me."

Her eyes widen ever so slightly, silver orbs framed by delicate black lashes, something close to a blush flirting with her cheeks as she chews her bottom lip and tries not to let me see. I nibble little kisses along her wrist, saying nothing. And after a moment, her fingertips weave their way back into my hair.

"It's still kind of early to get up," Katniss whispers, stroking my forehead, breath warm on my lips.

"Hmm."

She starts to smile at my response, expression going slack as I rotate us in the confines of the sleeping bag so she's laying on my chest and delicately trace her bottom lip. For as many times as we've kissed, make-out sessions that have occurred in front of the fire in her living room, on the wet, soapy counter in the kitchen, and up against the front door while my hand snuck under her shirt, we've strictly limited things to downstairs, rather than up in her bedroom, and there's something far more wonderful than I could have predicted about kissing Katniss first thing in the morning, something I'd forgotten how much I'd once liked, even back then, when it wasn't real. And something even better about doing it again while we're all tangled up together in a sleeping bag.

Her fingers sneak under the hem of my flannel, nudging it upwards as they meander their way north, tormenting the twitching muscles of my stomach and feeling over my chest, turning my usual case of morning wood into an almost-painful erection with _Katniss Everdeen_ scrawled in wet, sloppy letters all up and down its length.

I groan and nuzzle my way along her neck. Katniss has always had a fucking beautiful neck, whether she’s got her hair pulled back so I can see the strong archer’s build of her shoulders, or like now when it’s spilling in a dark, glossy curtain I just want to get lost in forever. Gently nipping her earlobe, I move back a little further to latch onto the sensitive spot at the edge of her hairline. Katniss shivers when my hand slips inside her shirt, gooseflesh breaking out beneath the path of my fingertips as I slowly trace her spine. She exhales a trembling breath, eyes dark and hooded as her mouth lowers back to mine--

And then her stomach snarls impatiently in a demand for cheese buns, and my vain attempt to hold a straight face fails spectacularly. Katniss scowls when she feels me smiling against her lips, digging a finger into my side where she _knows_ I'm ticklish and causing my silent laughter to morph into a howl. This side of her, too, it’s impossible not to love. The devious, playful Katniss who finds all the spots that send me grappling for her hands as my breathing comes in heaves, who’ll help me rumple the covers, then cuddle up beneath them as our heartrates cool, and whose cheeks always flush the warm rose of a soft winter apple as I reach up to trace them in the pale morning light.

"I'll get up and feed you," I whisper when we finally catch our breath, still grinning, and peck her on the lips.

"I need to pee." Unzipping the bag part of the way, she crawls out and tiptoes across the cold cement floor to where her slim leather boots are lined up next to my sturdier ones. "And I wanted to go out for a few minutes before breakfast. See if I can get anything."

I nod absently, watching her comb fingers through her hair and tie it in a short braid before donning her father's hunting jacket. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, how much of what she's saying is real and how much is just for me, so I'll be spared any potential embarrassment of having her watch me strap my leg back on, even if we both knew she’d had to help me remove it the night before.

"'Kay." Running a hand lightly over her calf, I sit up for a quick kiss. "See you in a bit."

Katniss sways a little in place as my fingers skim along the back of her knee, an image I eagerly commit to memory. My eyes linger on the sway of her hips as she disappears off into the crisp fall morning, and I keep my gaze locked on the open doorway for a count of one hundred to make sure she has no plans to immediately return. Satisfied, I lie back and spit into my palm, allowing images of her to flood the back of my eyelids as my hand begins to move.

 

* * *

 

"This is fucking stupid."

Silence. And then the leather chair across from mine creaks as Dr. Aurelius allows a slight dip of his head. Beside him, Decima holds a syringe of morphling and says nothing.

"Yes. I acknowledge you've expressed that opinion twice now. And I've explained that this particular therapy, though tedious at times, is paramount in restoring corrected memories of your experiences with Katniss from the past two years."

Grinding my teeth, I spin in the chair to glare out at a falsely bright day in the Capitol, sunlight sparkling off a dusting of fresh snow that had fallen in the night.

"What was the question, again?"

Dr. Aurelius steeples his fingers, appearing entirely unfazed by my rudeness, and nods to the recording. "Tell me what you saw in the clip I just played."

I pick at a loose thread on my pants. "In my own words?"

"Please." He answers cordially.

Shrugging, I swivel back and forth in the chair. "Monkeys."

"And?"

"And . . . we were surrounded by them. In the jungle."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him pick up his pen and start to write. "Who was?"

"Me and Finnick and Katniss," I say a little impatiently, like it wasn't obvious.

Dr. Aurelius finishes his notes. "And then?"

I sigh. "And then Katniss wanted my arrows. I started to hand them over to her, but there was this monkey--"

The room goes very still, and I know that _this_ is the moment I either answer correctly, or fail some silent test months in the making. And after a few seconds, Dr. Aurelius tilts his head.

"Go on."

I pick at the back of my hand, where the scar from Katniss' teeth forms a graceful pink arc. "One of the monkeys jumped at me and I couldn't get my arm free from the arrows. Katniss--"

Frowning, I keep my eyes fixed on a spot on the floor. "She threw a knife. And then ran towards me."

Dr. Aurelius makes a note. When I offer nothing further, he clears his throat. "And if you had to guess, what explanation would you offer for Katniss' actions?"

I shrug, gaze flitting to the image stilled on the screen. Katniss, face twisted in mid-shout, lunging towards me, her expression and bearing almost as savage as the tangerine-furred mutt blurred in the corner of the frame, inches from reaching me if not for what I knew came next.

"I think she wanted to stop them. Keep them from getting to me."

I don't look at Dr. Aurelius as I say it, don't need him to tell me he can hear in my voice that even _I_ don't quite believe what I'm saying. That most days asking _why_ Katniss did anything felt next to impossible, particularly when a lot of the time I still couldn't look at the Peeta Mellark in front of the cameras and assign him a motive with any degree of certainty. 

"Yes," Dr. Aurelius agrees softly, waiting until I meet his eyes to nod. "It seems clear in that moment just how much she was willing to sacrifice to protect you."

Swallowing, I pick at my hand again. "Him."

"I'm sorry?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Decima shift in place, and not for the first time, I want to ask why she or Hadriana or one of the other nurses still has to be present whenever we work on reverse hijacking my memories. I haven't needed the added morphling in over a month, and even if I did, it's not like Dr. Aurelius couldn't just give me the injection himself.

"She was willing to protect _him_ ," I say carefully, nodding to the image of myself on the screen. "You didn't hear her later, when she stood in the middle of Squad 451 and announced that Peeta Mellark was dead. That she'd have no trouble shooting _me_ because I was just another of the Capitol's mutts." Laughing harshly, I lean back in the chair and rub my eyes. "I'll never be able to be sure I'm _him_ to her. Not really. I'll always have to wonder if she sees me like one of the monkeys. Muttated. Irrevocably broken."

The room falls silent. At Dr. Aurelius' nod, Decima presses a button to turn off the recording, placing the viewing tablet delicately on his desk before slipping out the door.

"How did that make you feel?"

I laugh again, humorlessly, because this is his answer to _everything_ , and sometimes I just want to scream. Throw something across a room. Cry and rip my hair out before begging Katniss to tell me what the fuck it was, which of the unextraordinary, unimpressive list of qualities I had been so often reminded of at the end of a rolling pin? What was it about me that was inherently disposable, that she could so easily let me go?

"I hated her for saying it," I admit. "For treating me like some sort of freak for something that wasn't even my fault."

"You were angry," he counters softly, waiting a beat. "Hurt. Anyone hearing that would have been."

Swallowing, I play with the edge of one of the rice sacks, not saying anything for a long moment. "I felt betrayed . . .and--"

"Yes--"

"--and later I thought I would be sick. There was this tiny part of me that worried maybe she was right. That I was . . . _damaged."_

Dr. Aurelius sets the clipboard aside. "I won't try to minimize the hurt it must have caused you to hear Katniss say something like that. We've talked at length about the power words have to wound, at times far more deeply than any physical blow."

I nod without looking up.

He continues, "I _will_ ask you, Peeta, to keep in mind that when people lash out, what they say often tends to project negative feelings or fears _they_ may be harboring internally, rather than necessarily having a direct correlation to the target."

Snorting, I flip the rice sack from hand to hand. "I don't think Katniss thought she was a mutt."

"That might be looking at it a little too simplistically." His voice is patient. "What I'm asking you not to lose sight of, is that even if Katniss might have said something hurtful in a time of great stress, did she act upon it?"

I don't respond. Dr. Aurelius leans forward.

"When you felt you'd reached a low point, woke having been cuffed and thrown into a closet with no memory of how you'd gotten there, when you saw the recordings play back over the broadcast and asked the others to kill you, did _anyone_ agree to help?"

He waits.

"No," I finally mumble, but can't look at him, and we both know the reason has nothing to do with Katniss.

"Why?"

I go back to staring out the window. "Why what?"

Dr. Aurelius studies me for a beat. "Why do you suppose none of the members of your squad judged what happened after the pod detonated as harshly as you did, and have continued to?"

_And there it was._

Watching some giant machine I didn't even have a name for lift a huge beam more massive than the biggest tree I'd ever seen, I give a noncommittal shrug, not wanting to avoid this any longer, _wanting_ a way out, but as hopeless at knowing how to talk about it as I had been five days ago.

"Would you like to know what they said?"

Something jerks in my chest, sudden and unforgiving, a length of cord tethered to my insides that seems stubbornly intent on grating my spleen through the razor sharp spaces in my ribcage.

He retrieves the clipboard from the table next to his chair and flips back several pages. _"It was awful, what happened. Terrible to watch because of how senseless it felt. The loss of life. How pointless their deaths seemed as we tried to finish what we'd gone back to the Capitol to do. It wasn't Peeta who triggered the pods. Created the mutts. Started the Hunger Games."_

I say nothing, picking at the back of my hand.

Dr. Aurelius turns another page. _"It's taken me a long time to understand that the Capitol stays in power by exploiting fear. We do nothing because we're too afraid. They cut out a tongue, tell you that you are now nothing, and instead of rage, you only feel shame. That is how Katniss Everdeen touched off a firestorm, I believe. By reminding us how to be brave. It takes bravery every day to refuse to accept what they want me to believe, to take responsibility for what_ they _have done."_

Huffing out a breath, I slouch in the chair, letting it swivel slowly back and forth.

_"Mellark and I never were friends. Still not sure he should be around Katniss. But what happened that day . . . we all saw the footage. And for what it's worth, a guy lands on my back, I'm gonna throw him off, too. The pod being there . . . it was just a terrible coincidence."_

I suck in a sharp breath, feeling my nostrils flare, heart thudding with sick, nervous energy. There was no doubt in my mind Gale was the author of the last one, something in his words lifting a weight even as they made me want to crawl out of my skin at the thought of him talking to Katniss.

"What's going through your head?" Dr. Aurelius sets the clipboard aside.

Swallowing, I slowly turn back towards him. "I'm not sure how much it matters. If they've all decided I wasn't to blame. Or even if it's like you said before, about none of the doctors in Thirteen warning me I would be at risk of triggering an episode if I missed a dose on my meds . . . if _that_ was what made me flip my shit and attack Katniss . . . it still doesn't change the facts."

His eyes don’t leave mine. "And what facts are those?"

"That no matter who manipulated the pieces, someone is dead because of me, and that can't be undone."

Dr. Aurelius studies me thoughtfully. "There's something I would like for us to try. A therapy Dr. Lucius and I were discussing, one developed for soldiers experiencing post-traumatic symptoms in the wake of war. It's a sort of . . . non-destructive payback plan that examines guilt, and asks not whether _any_ responsibility should be assumed, but _how_ guilty one is. In essence, what part of what happened feels like your responsibility, and what concrete thing could you do to atone for it. To help your mind reach a place where it's ready to let go?"

He waits a beat. "Does that sound like something you think you could do?"

I poke at the edge of the table. And nod.

"Excellent. "I'd like you to try to work on a journal entry this afternoon so we can discuss it together--"

"How much longer until I get my pencils back?" I interrupt, not quite meeting his eyes.

Dr. Aurelius doesn't look up, still making notes. "As we discussed, you're free to use them during your recreation period."

I roll my eyes, not answering. Though no one would admit it, it was a little hard to miss some of the subtle and less than subtle changes that had been put into place immediately following our visit with Dr. Gai, starting with the confiscation of my charcoals and even resulting in the annoying measure of having one of the orderlies deliver four pre-portioned meal trays with cardboard forks three times a day.

"How are things with Lael?"

Shrugging, I toss the rice sack back on the table. "Fine, I guess. He never says anything. I mean, you know what I mean. It’s different than with Felix."

"Yes." He tilthis head. "But the two of you are getting along?"

I grunt. "Sure."

Following their fight, Chip had transferred rooms, and shortly after that, Felix had been moved to outpatient status and sent home. He still came to group sessions in the evenings twice a week, and occasionally stopped by after his appointments with Dr. Aurelius if I had rec time, but it wasn't the same.

"Do you want to read me what you worked on last night?"

Thumbing the edge of the electronic journal he'd provided, I scroll to the right entry and blow out a breath. "Yeah."

 

* * *

 

"Can I ask you something?"

Head pillowed in my lap with her legs stretched out over the picnic blanket, Katniss licks her lips and rotates the pearl on its slender silver chain. I suppress a smile and smooth my fingers through her hair.

"I think you just did."

Exasperated, she gives my leg a shove, but the corner of her mouth quirks when I blow her a kiss. "It's about when you were in the Capitol. With Dr. Aurelius."

"Oh." Settling back against the tree, I twirl a strand of her hair through my fingertips. "Okay, shoot."

"What was it like? You know, being there."

"Uh, kinda depends which part you’re asking about, you know?" Flashing her a quick grin, I shrug. "Spent the first week or so going a little crazy worried about you. They pretty much had me locked up with nothing to do but destroy the contents of my room and scream at Dr. Aurelius. Obviously, it got better--"

"No, I mean--" Katniss chews her lip. "Like later, when you wrote me the letters."

Nodding, I gently trace her scalp. "It was . . . better by then. Dr. Aurelius had helped me so much. But I missed you. Thought about you every moment of every day. All I wanted was to get back home to you, Katniss."

She tilts her head, silver eyes framed by a sea of dark, lustrous waves as they lock on mine. Abruptly sitting up, she rummages through the zippered pouch on the side of her knapsack, eventually digging out a folded piece of paper. It's worn. Crumpled from having been stuffed in her bag. But there's no mistaking the way the shock-white Capitol paper seems to repel everything else around it, particularly out here in the woods where we're surrounded by soft, muted hues and the deep, dark greens and blue-blacks of the pines.

Her fingers play over the frayed edge of the page as she gingerly unfolds it, lip catching in her teeth once more as she starts to mouth the words, then stops.

"You can read it out loud if you want," I tease, hands still weaving through her hair. "I wrote it, after all."

_"Last night, I woke up and saw that it had started to snow. You were singing next to my pillow. Sorry if that makes me sound like a bit of a creep, but Dr. Aurelius lets me listen to your voice when I have trouble sleeping. Sometimes it makes me think of another cold day, of you knocking me over in the snow. That happened. Real or not real?"_

She pauses, releasing a long breath as I fan her hair out over my lap.

_"I hope you're taking care of yourself, Katniss. As soon as Dr. Aurelius lets me come home, I'll make sure you and Haymitch have more baked goods than you know what to do with. Until then, well, just please take care of yourself. For me."_

Staring at the paper for a long moment, she quickly folds it. "And then you go on to tell me stories about your roommates, the games they had in the center down the hall--"

"You would have been good at the one with the paddles--"

But Katniss sits up. "No, you don't--" She blows out a breath. "I never had any idea. That you were writing me."

"I know," I tell her softly. "I know that now."

"But back then," she picks at her nails, "you must have . . . I don't know . . . felt something about it."

"I missed you. I was worried," I tell her honestly.

Her eyes flit up, blinking with such a genuine look of surprise that I have to smile. I slide a hand to her cheek, thumb lazily tracing back and forth across her bottom lip just before we lean in as one.

I let her take the lead, drowning myself in the taste of her mouth and soft sweep of her tongue. And my heart is threatening to pound right out of my chest by the time she breaks away and shakes her head.

"There's something I should tell you." She pokes at a wrinkle in the quilt. "So, um, this morning," refusing to look at me, she blows a strand of hair out of her eyes, "I realized I'd moved my gloves to the other bag, so I came back to get them."

Spots of color bloom bright as poppies in her cheeks as she studiously avoids my gaze, and stupidly, it takes me all of ten seconds to figure out why.

_"Oh."_

Katniss stares out at the lake, saying nothing as I start to laugh. If possible, her cheeks redden further.

"I didn't know you'd be . . . you know . . . doing _that."_ Flustered, she picks at her nails. "I mean, not this morning, anyway."

I rub the back of my neck, leaning against the tree. "Hate to be the one to tell you, but I’m pretty sure most guys do it most mornings."

A furrow forms in her brow. "Like while I'm still asleep?"

This time I can’t help but laugh, breaking the crispy edge off a peanut butter cookie to throw at her.

"Like in the shower."

"Oh."

Brushing crumbs out of her hair, Katniss stares out towards the water, starting to say something and stopping. I pop the rest of the cookie in my mouth, chewing thoughtfully and watching the wheels turn in her head. It’s a little hard to believe we’re having this conversation at all and there's something both exhilarating and terrifying about finally admitting everything out loud, half of me expecting her to bolt into the woods, the other half wondering if we’ve both just been waiting for the other person to make the first move, to finally put into words.

Katniss swallows, breath quickening. She chews her lip, eyes focused on the edge of the blanket, and I shift in place, conscious I’m quickly getting hard.

"Katniss, you have no idea," I begin, voice cracking. “what you do to me.

She cuts her eyes in my direction, lips slightly parted and breathing ragged. The air between us feels charged with an electric current as she inches closer, eyes darting guiltily to my crotch, where how much I want her is standing up on full display. Her lips touch mine, the kiss tentative and shy, as if we’d never done this before. My fingers slide through her hair, gently knotting at the nape of her neck as one by one, she circles the buttons of my shirt until she gets to the one just above my belt.

And that’s where she hesitates.

We break for air, foreheads pressed together, noses just brushing.

“Um . . . hi,” I manage, laughing lightly.

“Hi,” she whispers, biting her lip and failing to hide her smile.

I kiss her right there, that little place where her mouth pulls at the corner, once sweetly, and then with a loud, wet smack the geese can probably hear on the other side of the lake. Katniss snorts, but I just grin, waiting patiently as she shoves my shoulder and pretends to be annoyed.

Her face goes soft as I lean forward, lips whispering along the curve of her jaw. There’s no pressure. Nothing that has to happen or _will_ happen unless she initiates it. She releases a shallow breath, fingers a little unsteady as they unbuckle my belt and pry free the button on my trousers.

I nearly jump out of my skin when her fingertips tentatively graze my shaft. It’s the barest of touches, hesitant and unsure as the first faltering flight of a caterpillar on newly-opened butterfly wings. And yet as it always is with her, I’m lost, slave to each light flick of her fingers, shivering in unrestrained ecstasy as she delicately outlines each bump and ridge until one shy finger comes to rest on the velvet-skinned tip, so close to actually grazing it through the cloth of my undershorts I let out a quiet moan.

I keep my eyes screwed shut, all my concentration on _not_ blowing my load in the first ten seconds Katniss Everdeen actually has her hand in my pants, acutely aware of the slight back and forth stroke of each fingertip, the excruciating burn of arousal flickering out in spider web tendrils after her touch. With a beat of hesitancy, her fingers shyly curl around in a loose circle, capturing my girth. I’m not sure how long we stay that way, her softly stroking, me just reveling in the fact that she has her hand wrapped around my cock, but when she makes a little sound in the back of her throat, I finally open my eyes.

She chews her lip, expression uncertain.

“Um, is this--?”

Sliding my hand over hers, I gently guide it up and down. Grip her fist tighter until we can both feel the way I’m swelling beneath her fingertips with every stroke.

Quickly gaining confidence, Katniss pushes my hand away. She leans over me, and I slip up her shirt, grazing lightly along her sides and skimming the lacy trim of her bra to feel the way her nipples have formed into tight buds.

"Katniss, I’m--"

I start to groan a warning, to let her know the fireworks were about to shoot off. But saying her name seems to have the opposite effect, her fingers caging around my head so tightly there’s no stopping the chain reaction that one delicious little movement sets off.

"Katniss," I grit out, fisting the quilt as I push up through her hand. "Katniss, don’t stop--"

She hangs on tight as an orgasm erupts from my cock, letting me pump into her fist as my nuts contract over and over again. And as I feel the inside of my undershorts grow sticky and warm, I'm suddenly aware it's the first time I've ever come in front of someone, that for all the times I've fantasized about Katniss down on her knees sucking me off, or with her legs spread, the two of us twined together in front of a toasting fire as we give each other our virginity, this is the first time I've had to completely consciously be present while I came. And there’s something wonderful and scary and amazing about that.

I put my hand over Katniss' to still her movements and peck a kiss to the tip of her nose. She looks away while I clean things up, picking at her thumbnail and seeming increasingly agitated until I reach for her hand and tug her over to lie in my arms.

"Um . . . wow," I say lightly.

Katniss snorts and flicks at a piece of her hair, which promptly lands in my mouth. I smooth it away from her forehead, trailing my fingers along her arm.

“That felt amazing.” Kissing her lightly, I settle us back against the tree. “Thank you.”

Still she says nothing.

"You have no idea, how much I want to touch you,” I continue. “I think about it all the time, Katniss." Her chin tips up, and I let my mouth slant over hers, my fingers softly caressing her breast.

Her knee hooks across my leg, urging me closer. And as the kiss deepens, my hand inches downward towards her navel, determined in its path, slowing only when she breaks away.

Katniss licks her lips, the fingers stopping mine from going any further unmistakably nervous.

Still breathing hard, I lean my head against hers. "I want to make you feel good, too."

The worry line at the center of her forehead forms as she stares out towards the lake. And shrugs.

I take a careful breath. "Is it . . . are you worried about me seeing you with your clothes off? Or is it something else?"

She sits up and blinks quickly, not looking at me.

Waiting a beat, I scoot up behind her and carefully stroke her shoulders. "If you're just not ready that's okay, too. We don't _have_ to do anything. I’ll wait as long as you need."

Nodding, she picks at a thread on the cuff of her sleeve. "I don't . . . I mean, I do." She huffs crossly. "I think I start to feel that . . . _thing_ again sometimes, but--"

Her face clouds and she throws a chip of bark out towards the water. I trace a finger lightly down her spine, and she shivers.

"But?" I prompt, trailing back up the inside of her shoulder blade.

Katniss makes a face, refusing to answer for so long I'm almost certain she's not going to at all.

"But . . . it's not like it was before," she finally admits. "Like it was on the beach." I watch as her cheeks pick up color. "And . . . definitely not like _that."_

"Oh."

She draws a sharp breath and lifts her chin, signaling the end to the conversation. I toy with a piece of her hair, allowing silence to filter through the trees.

"Can I ask you something?" I fold and smooth the edge of the quilt, careful to keep my voice light. "It's about last summer."

I watch Katniss slip the pearl from beneath the collar of her shirt and slide it back and forth on its chain. But after a beat, she nods.

I stare off at the aspen leaves shimmering in the mid-afternoon sun, trying to word the question in a way that won't make her more upset.

"You brought me up here," I begin carefully. "We went swimming. Laid out by the water to dry off. We'd . . . taken off all but the basics, you know?"

Spots of color form on her cheeks, but I just shrug. "It didn't seem to bother you before."

Katniss exhales slowly through her nose, fingers tapping nervously against one arm.

"We weren't _together_ back then," she frowns at something off in the distance, "weren't . . . _doing_ things yet."

"Sure."

Chewing her lip, she looks down. "And besides, it wasn't--"

I swallow, gaze trained on her profile. "Wasn't--"

And this time, I see it, the hint of unsteadiness at the corner of her mouth as she fights with herself over whether or not to say it.

"Everything," she rasps, blinking quickly and looking away, but not before I see her swipe a hand under her eyes.

_"Katniss."_ Scooting up behind her, I wrap both arms around her middle and tuck my head in the crook of her shoulder. "I love you. We don't have to go any farther until you're ready."

She grunts in response, but after a minute, scrubs her cheeks. "Maybe I'll never be ready."

I rock her slowly back and forth. “I doubt that. But even if it takes forever, I’m going to be there. Always.” I wait a beat. "So we wait."

She says nothing, sitting complacently while I kiss the side of her neck. I smooth her hair, and she rests her head on my shoulder, my arm curling around her middle.

"I was pretty freaked out, you know." Exhaling, I squint up at the clouds overhead. "About . . . having an episode, last night, while we were--"

For a beat, Katniss says nothing. And then, "What do you think triggered it?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" Blowing out a breath, I toy with her fingers. "Realistically, it could have been any of half a dozen things . . . all our talk about the Capitol, the fight we had earlier, the floor being concrete--"

She doesn't respond.

I laugh humorlessly. "Obviously the one thing we _don't_ want it to be is from the two of us making out."

Finally, she pulls away so she can look at me, lightly brushing the hair back from my forehead.

"We make out all the time. I think it was just coincidence." Letting her fingertips ruffle through my hair, she starts to speak, then hesitates.

"What?" I ask softly, turning my cheek into her palm.

She chews her bottom lip. "You . . . when you started getting confused, I could tell because you, um, got soft."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Shrugging, she smooths the hair back from my forehead again. "It wasn't like you . . . you were freaked out, but you weren't trying to . . . hurt me, if that's what you're worried about."

I can't quite look at her. "You stayed."

Face unreadable, Katniss lens back against me, head pillowed on my shoulder. "You let me."

And not for the first time, I start to suspect that for a girl who prefers arrows to conversation, who doesn't shy away from gutting squirrels and handling entrails, and who stubbornly insists she doesn’t care a whit yet disappears into the woods the rest of the day whenever a letter arrives from District Four, this may be her only way of saying she loves me, too.

 

* * *

 

_"Shouldn't we have heard a cannon by now?"_

"I fucking hate this clip," I announce under my breath, gripping the arms of the chair and starting to fidget in place. "Even more than the one you forced me to watch yesterday."

Expression unchanged, Dr. Aurelius inclines his head. "So much so that you are unable to remain calm, or can you describe to me what you're seeing?"

Glowering at a point somewhere between the flat screeand the nasty looking hypodermic Hadriana has poised at the ready, because what sort of response did he expect to a question like that, I listen to the fight escalate as the camera pans out to reveal a horrified Katniss barely suspended in the trees overhead.

_"I said she's dead."_

"Peeta," Dr. Aurelius prompts, and not for the first time I have to wonder what’s crawled up his ass the last few days.

"It's the first night we were dropped into the arena," I say flatly, swiveling around to stare out the window so I won't have to see what I know is coming.

But it doesn't matter. Because for whatever reason, _this_ Peeta Mellark never fails to feel like the parts of me I most wish I could forget.

"What else?"

I let out a long breath through my nose.

"Katniss is trying to stay hidden. The Careers are hunting the others down."

Dr. Aurelius makes a note. "And you?"

Right on cue, I appear on screen, face looking about like a berry tart that's been hurled at the wall and smeared its way down to the floor. _"We're wasting time. I'll go finish her and let's move on."_

He studies my profile as I debate what sort of answer to give this time. That I'd wanted to protect Katniss. That I'd been trying to survive the only way a kid raised in town could manage, one who couldn't hope to set a snare or use a bow. That it was the only mercy I had left to offer. That clinging to the person you wanted to be was easy to aspire to and worth that much less when it wasn't at the point of a knife.

"I'm about to kill Callie Paxton," I say in a low voice, and this time Dr. Aurelius immediately pauses the clip.

"Peeta, how much of you really believes that statement as fact?"

I grunt. You have to hand it to him, he's good at this. Not _whether_ I believe it, but a question of percentages, as if he'd somehow guessed in this my mind was just as fractured and fucked up as the rest of me.

"Enough," I answer hoarsely, fighting the almost itchy urge to pick at the back of my hand.

She's frozen on the screen when I happen to glance up, face white with pain and hands a dark, terrible red where she grips her stomach. Part of me understands, awful as it feels to relive this particular scene time after time. Why we have to keep doing it. Knows from the gaps in my memory and the way parts of what I can remember seem not quite to fit in that it was one the Capitol worked especially hard to distort.

"On a scale of one to ten," he counters. "Considering all parties involved, if one was no responsibility, and ten was a high level of fault for what happened to Callie, how much of that is yours to bear?"

Swallowing, I wipe my hands on my pant legs. "I don't . . . maybe one or two."

Dr. Aurelius slowly nods, and I can guess this is something akin to progress. "What about the clip we viewed yesterday. The one from the jungle arena?"

"The same, I guess." I frown, looking up at him. "Why is this suddenly so important?"

Instead of answering, he turns to Hadriana. "That will be all, thank you."

For a moment neither of us speaks.

"I know what you're trying to get me to say," I start, and rub my face.

Dr. Aurelius tilts his head. "Indulge me, then."

I roll my eyes. He and Dr. Alexander just can’t give it a rest. It’s bad enough to get it in here, far more draining to sit in group two evenings a week. Hear the silent judgement in stares you refuse to meet. Words, that for all their good intent, can't find much traction when you're forced to listen to a girl who hates herself for the crime of not fighting back. When you share a room with a guy whose brother thinks he’s a freak. Sitting surrounded by a roomful of people whose sins will never be able to scratch the surface of everything you've done.

"That it wasn't my fault. That none of us wanted to be in those arenas. That we were all victims of the Capitol. That me slitting Callie's throat was an act of mercy--"

Dr. Aurelius leans forward, listening intently.

"--or that Natalie Porter _chose_ to sacrifice her life for Katniss' or for mine. It doesn't make any difference. _I_ still remember the feeling of her dying in my arms, the sound of her cannon, the stain of her blood spreading out over the water. _I_ threw Mitchell into the pod. _I_ killed Brutus."

"Yes," he agrees after a moment. "From a strictly factual perspective, each of those statements is accurate. But you, probably better than most, understand that there's a fine line between fact and _truth_. The question we have to answer is how to satisfactorily account for what has occurred, in such a way that your mind accepts that the trauma you experienced has been acknowledged so that it can move on. Right now, for whatever reason, that isn't happening."

I shrug and stare out the window, foot bouncing on my knee. Dr. Aurelius gestures to the tablet on the table between us.

"Did you have a chance to make any journal entries since our last session?"

Saying nothing, I grab it and click through the entries. Today it's hard to find one I don't have the immediate urge to delete, so I slump in the chair and just begin reading at random.

_“We keep going over what happened the day Mitchell died. Talking and arguing and turning those awful few seconds inside and out until they’re starting to feel like a stain I just can’t scrub out of my shirt. Part of me gets everything he’s saying. How can you be held responsible for something you don’t even remember happening?_

_In group, someone would say there isn’t necessarily a finger you can point after every bad thing that happens in life. Some events are just accidents. Tragedies. But by that same token, I think some feelings just can’t be broken down by logic, and guilt is one of them. If Katniss had been killed in the streets of the Capitol, even by accident, would I ever be able to be happy again?”_

For once, Dr. Aurelius makes no attempt to argue. I flip ahead to a new entry and clear my throat.

" _I wake up ten times a night now. It's almost always the same dream. We're back in the Quarter Quell. I'm chasing that damn golden thread or hacking apart vines yelling for Katniss. Lately it's near the end when I watched Brutus kill Chaff._

_I hate how powerless I feel. How even though now I know it isn't real and she's safe back in Twelve, in the dream every single time I believe him just like before when he says she's going to die, that he stabbed her."_

I start to scroll to the next entry, but Dr. Aurelius interrupts me.

"Is that all that happens?"

"What do you mean?" I frown, refusing to look up.

He sets his clipboard aside. "Is there any more to the dream?"

"Not . . . no, not that I remember."

When he says nothing, I scrub a hand through my hair, a hole the size of the Cornucopia yawning open in my gut.

"Peeta," Dr. Aurelius says when I still don't go on. "This is something we've talked about quite a bit in group, but I think it bears repeating. It is a human instinct to protect yourself from harm."

"You've seen the tapes just like everyone else," I mumble, fingers tapping jerkily against the tablet's cold, unfeeling face. "You _know_ what comes next."

Dr. Aurelius appears entirely unfazed. "Yes."

I swallow, both of us aware what he was waiting for, that it wasn't enough for me just to tacitly acknowledge what had happened, not this time. He was going to make me spell it out. Say the words as many times as it took for them to lose their power.

"The dream stops," my voice hitches and I hastily clear my throat, "before I actually kill him."

Dr. Aurelius makes a note. "Every time?"

I cough again. _"Yes."_

But it comes out halfway between a question and an answer, and I'm suddenly left wondering how good the chances are he's decided I'm full of shit. It’s safe to assume anyone working the mental ward at a hospital spends most of their day getting lied to, can probably detect a load of crap faster than my mom could spot a fake fever when one of us didn't want to go to school.

"Why do you suppose that is?" Settling back in the chair, Dr. Aurelius taps his pen thoughtfully against one knee.

I pick at the back of my hand. "I don't know. You're the head doctor."

At this, he faintly smiles. "I can guarantee you're more capable of answering the question than I am."

I turn to stare at the paintings of the screaming Avoxes that line the walls, starting to squirm. "It . . . all I could think about was Katniss. Nothing else. Just getting to her. She was yelling for me and I--"

Bile rises in my throat, the roar of the teeming insects a vicious buzz in the back of my mind.

"Go on." Dr. Aurelius peers over at me and I blink, rubbing my face.

"Nothing else mattered," I say again. "I just . . . had to get to Katniss."

Maybe it's something in my voice, but he finally lets it drop, at least for this session. I slouch back in the chair, toying with the tablet while he finishes his notes.

"Do you think I'll ever feel like me again?"

He studies me over wire-rimmed glasses. "Tell me what you mean by that."

I scrub a hand through my hair. "I want to know the truth. No bullshit this time. If I’m never going to be able to be around people again . . . to live a normal life, I want to know."

Dr. Aurelius slowly nods. "I feel confident that you’ll be able to lead a satisfying life. You’ve done exceptionally well with the graduated exposures and other techniques to reduce the uncontrolled reactions to objects you’ll regularly encounter.” He hesitates “You may have to adjust your expectations of what norm--"

"How much longer before I can go home?" I blurt, the words out there before I can stop them. And once they’ve escaped, I’m suddenly unable to look him in the eye for fear of what he might say.

The beat of silence is answer enough.

Despair crashes over me, heavy and bitter tasting as my one memory of seawater. Threatening to crush me as it twirls innocent bubbles in the frothy current. Making beams of light dance with just the soft lap of the waves. Something so beautiful and yet dangerous as well, darkness concealed in its cold depths.

“Never mind”, I mumble, ashamed and unable to precisely name _why_ , curling my fingers until the knuckles look ready to split through the skin.

”We’ll discuss it soon,” he says gently, a promise that allows only a flicker of hope before despair comes flooding in to crush it like the frail wings of a moth.

 

* * *

 

“Dr. Aurelius . . . said something to me the other day.”

The comment comes from out of the blue, as we’re sitting huddled together under a quilt after dinner watching the sun set over the mountains. Shifting a little to tuck Katniss more securely under my arm, I prod at the fire with the long stick that’s been serving as a poker.

After a moment, she frowns out at the water, and I gently tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “And?”

Katniss picks at a blade of grass. “And he reminded me again it’s been nearly a year. Since . . . you know, everything.”

I nod silently. It’s nothing he hasn’t said before.  But the closer the date gets, the more it seems like he’s at least _trying_ to get her to talk about it. About Prim.

“How’d that go?” Following when she leans back on her elbows, I prop myself beside her.

She snorts, glancing away. “I screamed at him and threw the phone across the room.”

I roll my eyes and tweak the end of her nose. “You’re impossible.”

She just shrugs, but something in her face grows guarded. “I was so furious at him. But later on that night, when I was coming home from the woods, I realized how _tired_ I was, too. I’m so tired of being sad, Peeta. Sometimes I just want to feel good again. And I hate myself for it.”   

And as I watch, she turns away, quickly swiping at her eyes where she thinks I can’t see. Gently tipping her chin in my direction, I trace the delicate line of her jaw.

 “Do you think maybe it’s time?” I murmur, whispered apologies trailing from my fingertips to her cheeks even as I say it. “For us to start her page.”

And as her eyes fill with tears, I know that I’ve hurt her. But after a long, agonizing moment, she gives her head a quick jerk.

Katniss curls into my chest, the two of us saying nothing as streaks of orange and brilliant pink fade to the tranquil slate blue of nightfall.

At some point, her palm grazes my cheek in silent invitation. I pull the edge of the quilt over us, my mouth slanting across hers. I groan as her hands slip under my shirt, her fingers scrawling hungry marks over my naked back as my tongue explores her mouth.

She shivers when I find her favorite spot behind her ear, wriggling under me so I can get between her legs. And this time, when I suck a path of wet kisses along the marks leading down her neck, she doesn’t fight it. Allowing my mouth to linger at the hollow of her throat, I nibble as far across her collarbone as her shirt will let me, the hand beneath it already inside her bra.

“Peeta,” she breathes, arching her back.

“Hmm?” I smile against her skin, lips nibbling in the same spot again.

She stops, and I feel her tremble. But after a few seconds, her fingers work their way out of my clothes and go to the line of buttons on the front of her shirt. I say nothing, trying to read her expression in the fading light as she hurriedly undoes them and shrugs it off. Her undershirt covers tantalizingly little, a few pieces of thin cotton and ribbon that dip so low in front it’s hard for my eyes not to immediately be drawn there.

Katniss’ hands card through my hair and smooth across my shoulders, a silent thrill ghosting up my spine when she leans up to whisper in a husky voice, “Off?”

I kiss her deeply. Quickly. And strip to the waist, moving back over her as fingernails scrape up my arms. Her head tips back in invitation and I let my lips sink to her neck, starting where the pearl rests dark and lustrous at the hollow of her collarbones, and feathering little kisses up the column of her throat. I feel the gooseflesh breaking out on her olive skin. Her arms tug me closer as I lazily work my way across her shoulder. Nudge the silky straps with my nose. But even when she shudders, make no move to disturb them. Not yet. Instead I let my lips and tongue tease a path along it to the soft curve of her tits, where I can see the pale lace of her bra peeking out.

Katniss groans. Her legs have knotted around me in obvious frustration, a hand fisting in my hair. Whether to scold me or redirect my efforts, it’s hard to be sure.

I gently bite her earlobe. “You know, it’s okay to want more. And also okay to decide this is far enough for tonight.”

“Her mouth finds mine, warm and curious, and I know what her answer will be even before it travels from her lips to mine in a breathless rush.

“More.”

With careful fingers, I ease the straps off one of her shoulders, tilting her head away so I can better devote attention to her skin once they’re out of the way. It hasn’t escaped my notice that some of her most severe burns lick up her neck, and I waste no time in showering her in kisses from ear to upper arm.

Her breathing picks up the moment I move lower, but from the way her fingers can’t keep still in my hair, I’m pretty sure it’s not a bad thing. I nuzzle my way along the edge of her bra, dropping kisses as I go. She squirms against me where I’m hard as a log between her legs and not for the first time I wish I had a hand free to see how good I could make her feel down there, too.

The light has nearly faded from the sky, the fire having died down at our feet, but as I slip her bra down it’s still enough to glimpse a hint of curve and the dusky circle of her nipple just before my lips descend. Katniss sucks in a sharp breath, hands threading into my hair when my wet mouth makes contact. I swirl the little bud gently with my tongue, and Katniss pushes her hips up into my aching groin, twisting against me as I begin to softly suck.

_“Peeta”_

It’s part keening and part song, my name chanted over and over again in soft little whispers as I worry and tease, letting her know with my mouth how perfect she is to me. How long I’ve wanted to do this. And after, as I kiss a path between her breasts and nuzzle her other little pink tip into my mouth, Katniss arches into my lips, breath coming in hot pants.

“what if I put my hand here?” Sliding it carefully between us, I keep the question light. “I want to make you feel good.”

Part of me, a bigger part than I really wanted to admit, was intimidated by the whole thing, worried maybe I _couldn’t._ I’d heard enough from Rye over the years to get the general idea, even if I’d never done it. Haymitch had provided more advice without too much detail. And it was pretty clear that for girls it was a lot more complicated than the instinctual grab and pump motion anyone who’d ever seen an erection needed all of about two seconds to figure out.

But this was _Katniss._ And that meant even if I had to make an idiot of myself trying, I was going to do my darndest to make sure she came, too.

“do you want me to--?” She chews her lip, gesturing to me.

“No.” Pecking a quick kiss to her lips, I let my nose graze her cheek. “Tell me what feels best.”

At first, she all but refuses. Buries her hands in my hair and clamps her lips shut, leaving me to guess only by her sighs and little gasps what was actually working. And then we start to find a rhythm. Her fingers guiding my mouth. Little noises when I change the position of my hand. _Yes_ or _there_ or just a little hum that let me know I was getting closer. After a few minutes, I lower her zipper and she doesn’t object.

But eventually we hit a plateau. I can feel Katniss’ frustration, even if she doesn’t say it. Can tell by the way her muscles have grown tense and her breathing has changed that something is wrong.

“Does it still feel good?” I whisper into her neck.

She hesitates. “Yes.”

And in that moment, I want to ask her if she’s ever done it before, if she could show me what I’m doing wrong. But the question feels somehow too invasive as I stare into her face, watch her carefully avoid my eyes. 

“Do you want to--’

“It feels good,” she interrupts quickly. “All of it. But I’m . . . kind of tired, too.”

“Oh.” I know she can probably hear the disappointment in my voice. But we’ve pushed things today and I don’t want to overwhelm her. “Okay.”

I kiss the tip of her nose. We clean up the campsite and move inside. And after we’ve gotten ready for bed and she’s lying on my chest in front of the hearth, she whispers, “Will you draw something for me?”

“’Course.” Combing fingers lazily through her hair, I stare up at the ceiling. “Anything.”

Katniss watches the flames, a long moment passing before she swallows. “I want you to paint Lady licking Prim’s cheek.” She bites her lip and her eyes grow soft and glassy. “It’s the best memory I have. That’s how I want to remember her.”

I hold her tightly, saying nothing. When I finish the portrait a month or so later, Katniss stares at it for a long time, finally nodding as tears fill her eyes. It turns out she likes it so much, I have to paint a second copy. The first, we seal into the book. The second is hung in the sunniest room on the second floor. At first, it doesn’t get many visitors. A grieving sister. The occasional moth. A skulking yellow cat. But time has a way of healing even the worst wounds. And after five, ten, fifteen years go by, the room is aired out and cleaned. I cover one wall in a field of dandelions. And as Katniss rehangs Prim’s portrait over by the rocking chair, where her sister will watch over her niece or nephew every night, I finally catch the trace of a smile.

 

* * *

 

 “And then?”

I look down for a moment, composing my answer. When I raise my eyes, the panel of military commanders is still staring back at me from across the room. “And then I would wake up. Back in my cell.”

One of them leans forward. ”With no memory of how you got there?”

“No.”

There’s a beat of silence. Without meaning to, I feel my gaze flick over to Dr. Aurelius behind the table to my right. The female commander from 13, this one older and with the seasoned appearance of someone who’s seen too many battles, shakes her head.

“But you have no memory of ever seeing Dr. Gai while you were in the prison, is that correct, Mr. Mellark?”

But this is one question I’m no longer afraid to answer. Not to myself. And not to a room full of people silently judging every word I say.

“I recognized his voice,” I answer quietly.

And when I refuse to look away, after a moment, she gives a subtle nod. The man directing the questioning isn’t Capitol, and doesn’t seem to be military either. He’s not as old as the others, but has a flinty shrewdness in his eyes that lets me know that even if he might be pale and slight, he’d probably be the type to find a way out of any arena he happened to find himself in.

“Mr. Mellark, can you describe what would happen when the guards would enter your cell?”

He addresses the question to the wall opposite the door, looking neither at me nor the panel of soldiers there to rule on Gai’s fate, hands gently clasped behind him as he walks the length of the floor.  

My hand twitches, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Dr. Aurelius bow his head.

“It . . . was different every--” I start again. “Sometimes they--”

“Give us an example,” he interrupts, although not unkindly. He waits while I pick at the back of my hand, wondering what district he was from, and whether this was what he had done before the war.

I think back to one of the days I remember fairly clearly. A half hour or so Dr. Aurelius and I had been talking about over the past few sessions.

“I hear them unlock the cell door. I’m in the back corner. It sounds stupid. I mean, my cell was so small I could barely lie down in it both ways. What would be the chances they wouldn’t find me?” Chewing my lip, I trace the wood grain of the table. “But I guess it feels impossible not to try, you know?”

The dark-skinned commander, who I recall as being introduced as from Eight, folds his arms. I swallow.

“They used a stunner first, that much I remember clearly. Always nice to have a prisoner who can’t fight back. Even when it is two to one.” Running my finger over the scar from Katniss’ teeth, I make a sound under my breath. “One of them dragged me out into the middle of the floor, and they hit me with the clubs they carried on their belts. Mostly in the stomach. My back. My arms and legs. Rarely my face. I guess someone had told them I needed to be kept camera-ready. But they knew all the spots to choose. Where to strike to make it hurt the most. Pressure points. Vulnerable organs my ribs couldn’t entirely protect from the force of their kicks. They’d done this before. Countless times.

“There were these rings set into the wall, high and a little more than a shoulder’s width apart. You get to this point in the middle of it, no matter how badly you want to go home. No matter how much you love those you left behind. The pain becomes all that ever existed or ever will exist. You stop worrying you’re going to die. Instead you start worrying it could take hours. Days. You start silently begging for it to just be over soon. Because they’ve made you watch while they kill someone else. Slowly. And it haunts your every waking moment. And when you get to that point? That’s when they cuff you and chain you to the wall.”

Someone behind me clears their throat uncomfortably, and I pause to take a drink of water.

“And then what?” The special investigator dips his head. “Whenever you’re ready.“

Swallowing, I rotate the glass. “What came next was even worse. With your muscles all wobbly from the stunner, all you can do is hang there. It’s ripping the connections in your shoulders apart, but you don’t even have time to think about _that_ , because now they’ve got your arms pinned up and your ribs out of the way where they can really do a lot of damage.”

And then I go into the knives. The machine they would charge up until the tip of the metal wand was hot as an iron. The electric shocks. Screams that went on and on until I couldn’t tell anymore if they were coming from my own throat or Johanna’s cell. Until I finally blacked out.

And to their credit, not one of the military officials assigned to decide Gai’s fate looks away until I finish.

After it’s over and I’m thanked for my testimony, Dr. Aurelius and I are escorted to the car sent by the hospital. I slouch back in the seat.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” I rub my face. “Took a while.”

“Yes.” He waits a beat. “I thought your testimony went well.”

I say nothing, taking the opportunity to look out the window at something different than the view from my room for a change. The car slows only a minute or two later, and I frown.

“Why are we stopping?”

Dr. Aurelius gets out. “There’s something I want you to see.”

It’s a park of some sort, one that must have been badly damaged during the war. You can see the places where swaths of freshly upturned earth crisscross the ground like scars, the few trees left remaining not yet daring to put out the tiny bright buds of spring. Machines work to flatten the terrain at one end of the park where it appears a pod went off, or perhaps something worse, from the piles of mangled branches. I follow Dr. Aurelius to the small, empty pond at its center.

We just stand there, shivering a little in the open wind. And just when I’m about to ask him what we’re doing there, he nods over to the machines.

“This is where the first of the memorials is being built.” He folds his arms. “Paylor is establishing a committee to oversee the destruction of the arenas. The reparations to the surviving victors. And the building of memorials for the tributes who were killed at the hands of the Capitol for seventy-five years.”

I nod, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “Do they, uh, know what it’s going to look like yet?”

Dr. Aurelius shifts in place. “I haven’t been advised of the final design, but it’s apparently to include some sort of stone structure bearing the names of all the tributes.”

I scan the area, trying to picture it. Nothing could make this day feel _good_ , but it means something that for once the Capitol is trying to do something right. So that all the lives that were lost wouldn’t just be forgotten. Wouldn’t just disappear the moment their backs were turned like dust swirling in the dry summer heat.

And then I think of Rom, whose partner Sol had been shot by soldiers from Thirteen. Of Quin, who’d been injured when the pods turned the city streets to rubble. Of Shale, whose husband died in the air raids. Of Chip, whose children perished like so many others across Panem, from medicine shortages. Of Felix and Lael and Janus, and the nightmares the Avoxes might have to spend the rest of their lives trying to untangle, just like Katniss. Of my parents and brothers and all the other people from Twelve who were killed the night of the firebombing.

“How well do you know Paylor?” I ask after a moment.

Dr. Aurelius considers the question. “Not terribly well. I’ve spoken with her on several occasions. Nothing more.”

I stare out at the machines. “What kind of president do you think she’ll be?”

His lips form a tight sort of smile as he turns my way. “Time will tell.”

There’s something odd in his voice, and after watching brightly-dressed Capitolites scurry along the sidewalk in a fruitless attempt to get ahead of the rain, I lick my lips. “What aren’t you telling me?”

His expression becomes unreadable. “Paylor let me know earlier in the week that at least one member of the committee would be sitting in on the panel I convene whenever it becomes time to make the final determination on whether or not you’re ready to leave the hospital.”

At first I say nothing, breathing picking up as the pieces start to fall into place. “The tapes?”

He looks down, face giving nothing else away. “There’s recorded data that demonstrates you having difficulty accurately interpreting events back in Thirteen. It’s safe to say they’ll want to see that you can be exposed to images from the Games, which will presumably be aired at some point even if not in the same format, and understand what is being shown isn’t a threat.”

Blinking, I rub my eyes. “Which ones do you think they’ll use?”

When he looks over, his gaze is sympathetic. “I don’t kno--”

“The one from the Quarter Quell?”

I frown and pick at the back of my hand. Dr. Aurelius regards me silently, dark eyes missing nothing.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if something from that arena was included.” He waits a beat. You know, Peeta, I was very impressed with how you handled yourself today. I know this will be difficult, and unpleasant. But I think you’re stronger than you sometimes give yourself credit for.” 

I say nothing, frowning off at the machines.

Dr. Aurelius inclines his head. “Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you?”

Shrugging. I kick at the tufts of brown grass. “You talked before about examining fault. About _how_ guilty someone was of what happened instead of seeing it as to blame or not.”

He nods for me to continue.

I draw a breath. “I think I want to write to their families. Tell them that I’m sorry for whatever part I played. Do you think that’s possible?”

”Yes.” His voice is gentle. “I think that would be therapeutic for you.”

In the back of my mind, I hear what he says. But the sinking feeling in my stomach is back. Bottoming out like the deepest pit and threatening to swallow me whole. Desperation and fear and so much self-loathing sometimes I was surprised I hadn’t already choked on it. And it’s then I decide I have to tell someone, even if I regret it forever. Even if I never can work up the nerve to tell Katniss. Because holding it all inside is eating me up alive.

“That night,” I begin, voice raspy. “After Chaff died. Brutus was coming towards me with the knife. And I was so scared I was about to piss myself. And then he smiled. And--”

I pause, but Dr. Aurelius says nothing.

Looking down at the ground, I draw a rough breath. “And he started talking. About what he’d done to Katniss.” Her name comes out naked and shaky as the bare limbs of the fragile cherry trees shivering in the harsh Capitol weather, and I shake my head, trying to force the actual words from my mind. “I started screaming for her. Howling her name. He attacked me then.”

Dr. Aurelius waits until I fall silent. “And then?”

I stare down at a speck of dirt, remembering the sound of Katniss’ voice. So far away. Of blood splattering the ground. Blades flashing white in the moonlight. The feral huff of breath as we lunged at one another. The realization that he might be stronger, but I was faster. That even if Haymitch was an old drunk, he’d taught me to handle a knife. And worst, most shameful of all, as his strike missed and I spun to drive in the blade, that this time was tangibly different from any of those that had come before.

“It was different. I was,” I rub my eyes, “ _trying_ to kill him. Not like with the others. I was sick with the idea he would hurt Katniss. And it suddenly didn’t matter to me anymore what I did to him.”

Dr. Gai stares back at me across the table in the Training Center, eyes cold and knowing. Knives lick over my skin like searing tongues in the dark, some part of me understanding I deserved them. I stand over a body in the humid jungle air as a cannon fires, the monster I’d never wanted to become.

“Peeta, I want to remind you of something,” Dr. Aurelius says gently. “A few minutes before that, when Chaff appeared and got between you and Brutus, what was your reaction?”

A lump forms in my throat. “That he’d rescued me. That I might still have a chance to save Katniss.”

“Yes. That he’d acted in your defense, rather than out of aggression.” He turns so that we’re facing. “And I realize part of you already understands that the act of defending yourself or Katniss wasn’t _wrong_ by any reasonable rule of measure. It’s a matter of getting through to those deeper buried feelings where this has been hiding for a long time.”

We start back towards the car.

Dr. Aurelius glances over. “You remember the clip we watched last week. The one just after the four of you had escaped the beach?” Waiting until I nod, he continues. “I wondered if it might make a difference, to be reminded how Katniss and Finnick both seemed to see you.”

“Finnick said none of us were victors by chance,” I remember quietly. “Except maybe for me.”

“Yes.” Dr. Aurelius peers down at me. “And even more striking to me was the way you reacted when it was clear they were poised to attack each other. You didn’t side with Katniss. No matter how much you loved her, and no matter if you would have defended her, you did everything within your power to resolve the confrontation without violence.”

“I remember.” Drawing a breath, I lift my face towards the hazy sky.

After dinner, I watch Finnick and Katniss face off, trying to decide if any of us could really be trusted after everything we’d done. And even though I’m still not sure I’m any better than the rest of them, it feels good to know that at least in that one singular moment in time, someone didn’t see me as irreversibly damaged.

That night, for the first time in weeks, I dream of something other than the Quarter Quell. Two days later, Dr. Aurelius comes down to my room to let me know Dr. Gai has been found guilty and executed by firing squad. I feel no sense of satisfaction, or even relief. Only a profound sense of exhaustion. And I’m not surprised that Dr. Aurelius decides to wait a week before informing me that when he went to inform Janus, he discovered he’d passed away peacefully in his sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

A/N: Part four of four. The “non-destructive payback plan” developed as a part of working with veterans with PTSD was referenced in the same article cited back in chapter 9. Please excuse any typos in this one. My vision has been giving me issues and parts of this were entered using a screen reader. Comments are like a cozy campfire with Peeta there to keep you warm.


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